


in this twilight

by belovedmuerto



Series: blood and moonlight [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dubcon Cuddling, M/M, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, Vampire Bucky Barnes, Witch Steve Rogers, mentions/implications of past rape/noncon, soulbond, there is no depiction of rape or noncon in this fic, vampire!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-17 02:10:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11841786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belovedmuerto/pseuds/belovedmuerto
Summary: this is a gift/ it comes with a price/ who is the lamb?/ and who is the knife?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> With many thanks to hawkguyz for the encouragement and the beta. Any mistakes left are probably on purpose. 
> 
> And to the wonderful Curry-Ketchup who made art for this (which I will be posting shortly)! It's been absolutely wonderful working with you! <3
> 
> I really enjoyed writing this. It is a pretty direct sequel to "never let me down again" so you should probably read that first.

The sense of dread Steve feels as his Lyft driver pulls into the driveway that leads up to the house is familiar. Like pulling on an old coat. Or suffocating oneself under a wet woolen blanket.

“Yo,” the driver breathes, as they get closer and the house comes into view. Even half burned down it’s still impressively huge and ostentatious.

And ugly, in Steve’s opinion. He’s always hated this house.

“You live here?” the driver asks, rolling to a stop right out front. He’s leaning forward— Steve can’t remember his name and he feels terrible about it, under the dread— looking up at the house through the windshield.

Steve grimaces. “No. No one lives there anymore. There was a fire a while back.”

Steve’s pretty sure that’s at least partially a lie, but he definitely doesn’t want to get into it with this rando. The guy would freak out, and that’s just the best-case scenario.

As it is, the guy is looking at him kinda sideways.

“I live on the property,” Steve allows, shrugging. “There’s no road out there, though. I’ll walk around, it’s cool.”

The driver shrugs and opens his door, pops the trunk. “Need a hand with your stuff?”

“Nah, I’m good,” Steve says.

He shrugs again, but his expression is skeptical.

It makes Steve want to defend himself, point out that his size doesn’t mean he’s weak. He wants to defend himself. Vigorously. With a demonstration of power. Preferably a painful one.

It’s not worth it.

_Some rando_ , he reminds himself. 

Rando is a good word. Sam taught him that word.

Steve gets out of the car, fiddling with his phone, paying the driver, tipping him.

“Thanks for the ride,” he says.

“No prob,” the driver replies. He gestures at Steve’s luggage, two bags and his backpack. “You good?”

“Yep, fine,” Steve replies, short now. Bristling. He tells himself to calm down. It’s not like he’s not aware of how he appears to other people. Mundane people. But it still bothers him, sometimes. Especially when he’s tired and stressed, like now.

It makes him want to prove himself. Definitively.

He should be more used to it by now.

The driver shrugs again, unconcerned, uncaring of Steve’s insecurities, and gets back into his car. Steve watches him head off down the driveway, quickly out of sight because the drive is just as ridiculous and ostentatious as the house, if not more so.

Steve senses that someone— someones— is behind him more than he hears them approach. Steve’s sense of other people (or creatures) approaching is reliable and sensitive, well-honed, carved out over years, decades, centuries of necessity, out of self-preservation.

(And wouldn’t Bucky have laughed. His Stevie— a sense of self-preservation? No way in hell.)

Steve mourns for that long dead boy, and his innocence.

He turns around once the driver is long gone.

The wolves are arrayed in front of the house, Peggy front and center. She is smiling at him.

“Hello, Steve,” she says.

“Hi Peg,” he replies.

“It’s good to see you.”

“You too.”

Behind her, someone snorts. Morita, perhaps, or Dugan. Peggy rolls her eyes. 

“Yes, yes, off you pop,” she says, glancing over her shoulder. “It’s just Steve, we’re not being invaded. No need for all this bravado.”

“You’re fucking paranoid, Frenchie,” Fallsworth adds.

Dernier shrugs. <“Better safe than sorry.”>

“Except when it comes to explosions,” Gabe adds.

Dernier shrugs again, grinning now.

One by one, the pack melts into the shadows, which is impressive considering it’s still light out, until it’s just Peggy and Steve.

“How was your trip?” she asks.

Steve makes a face. “What’s going on, Peggy?”

She purses her lips at him. “Walk with me, Steve.”

Steve approaches her, offers his arm because occasionally his manners lag a few centuries behind the current times. She smiles and tucks her hand into the crook of his elbow.

“What about my things?”

“The boys will get it and bring it out to your home,” she says.

Steve stiffens. “This is not my home.”

She stops at looks at him. Nods. “Not even a little bit?”

He glares.

She pats his arm, starts walking again. He moves with her, else he get dragged along. He has no doubt she is physically stronger than him.

“Do you want to walk around the house or go through?” Peggy asks, and Steve is reminded why he likes her so much, why he texts her all the damn time, more than he texts Bucky, more than he texts Sam or Wanda.

“Around would be good,” he replies, grateful that she gave him the option.

She nods. “You should look though, at some point. The lads have been doing a good job of making it habitable again. And look like something other than a supervillain’s lair.”

“Now that’s impressive,” Steve replies, glancing up at the house.

Peggy laughs. “Your old master had really awful taste, Steve, I must say.”

“Right? All that weird Rococo stuff, and the velvet!”

Peggy laughs with him. “We had a merry bonfire with all the curtains in the house. I have pictures. Dugan got drunk and almost fell in. Singed off half his mustache!”

Steve has to stop walking he’s laughing so hard. “Oh gods I’d had loved to see that,” he finally manages to say. “I wish you’d sent me those.”

“I still have them,” she replies. “I’ll show you later.”

They start walking again.

“Who’s keeping up the grounds?” Steve asks, after a few minutes.

“Monty,” Peggy tells him. “He’s taken a shine to it, actually. Morita helps, but mostly just with the trimming and the goldfish pond.”

“There are goldfish in the pond again?”

“Mmhmm,” Peggy replies. Then, “what happened to them before?”

“Someone ate them. Rumlow, I think.”

Peggy tsks. “Barbarian.”

“And then some.” 

“Good riddance.”

“Deity be praised.” It is perhaps one of the most sincere prayers that Steve has ever offered up.

Peggy pats his arm again, in empathy, and they walk in silence for a bit, rounding the house to the extensive grounds in the back.

The east end of the building is still a charred ruin. Steve stops to look that way, smiling savagely.

Peggy stands quietly beside him, letting him look his fill, waiting for him to turn away, towards the wooded end of the property, where his cabin is, before she starts moving again.

“We’re mostly living in the west wing,” she tells him.

Steve nods.

“The kitchen was wasted on that lot,” she adds.

“Do you cook?” Steve asks.

Peggy laughs. “Lord, no. But Gabe does, and Dernier. Dugan is a surprisingly good baker, too. We’re doing pretty well here, if I may say.”

Steve just nods.

“Are you alright with that?”

He shrugs. “I honestly don’t know.” He thinks maybe he’s glad that they’re finding happiness here, even if he never did. Even if he’s terribly glad that the house is more or less burned down.

They walk, heading towards the pond. Peggy seems to sense that Steve is not ready to go to his cabin yet. 

And he isn’t. He’s not ready for any of this. 

He’s not ready to see Bucky again.

He was happier, in New York. Sometimes, he was even **happy** there. It was an astonishing feeling. One he could barely remember, barely conceptualize.

“I never knew happiness, here,” he says, when they’re standing side-by-side next to the pond.

Steve watches the goldfish swim around and around.

Peggy slips her arm from his, and takes his hand, squeezes, holds on.

“I’m sorry for that,” she says.

Steve shrugs. There’s no changing the past. And his past is long and dark. His past has done irreparable harm to his soul, to his heart, and he doesn’t know that he’ll ever begin to make up for it.

All he can do is try. Try to move on, try to live, outside of Pierce’s shadow.

Inside Bucky’s.

Steve takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

“Maybe you should tell me,” he says.

Peggy squeezes his hand. When he looks at her, she seems pensive, like she’s gathering her thoughts before she speaks.

Steve waits. He is nothing if not patient these days.

( _You?_ the Bucky in his head— the young, still alive and human and vibrant one— scoffs. _No way, Stevie. You wouldn’t know patience if it hit you across the face. Probably has, knowing you._ )

“How much do you know?” she asks, finally.

“Not much, really.”

She blinks. “Really? I thought the bond went both ways.”

“It does. He’s been keeping things from me, I think. Somehow.”

She arches a brow at him.

“I don’t know _how_ , Peg. Distance, maybe? Or that’s just a thing he can do? Shield his mind, somehow? Vampires can do a lot of random shit, yanno? It’s not like we talked about it, before I hauled ass to Not Here.”

Peggy makes a face. “That’s actually a distinct possibility. He had to learn how to fight Zola’s mind-control, or else he never would’ve gotten away from him. Never would’ve gotten us away from him.”

“Vampires are awful,” Steve mutters.

Peggy smiles, understanding. “They do suck,” she agrees.

Steve glares at her again. “You’re not funny.”

She laughs, just a little. “I’m sorry, Steve, I couldn’t resist.”

Steve’s trying not to smile, and failing miserably. “That was awful.”

“It was,” she agrees. She sobers, though. “There’s something wrong. He won’t tell us what it is.”

“Yes,” Steve agrees. “I can feel that much. Just that something is off, and he’s keeping as much from me as possible.”

“That’s why you came back,” Peggy says.

“That’s why I came back,” Steve agrees.

Peggy drops his hand, and slips her arm around his waist.

“I’m glad you’re here, Steve. Thank you for coming.”

Steve puts his arm around Peggy. He leans his head on her shoulder. Just for a moment. He lets himself take comfort in her, for just a moment, before he takes a deep breath.

“Tell me the rest,” he says.

Peggy looks at him. “I don’t know much. He’s shutting us all out. Even crankier than usual. But I don’t think he’s sleeping. Or eating much. I don’t know why.”

Steve’s dread comes roaring back. He has a distinct and terrible feeling he knows why Bucky isn’t sleeping.

So much for living his life on his own terms, in his own way, for the first time since Pierce had taken him.

So much for his freedom.

They stand by the goldfish pond for a long time, just watching the fish and not talking anymore. Not about Bucky or Steve, or how much Steve doesn’t want to be anywhere near here. They don’t talk about Peggy or the other wolves and their as-yet-unexplained loyalty to Bucky.

Steve had left so quickly before. He’d been so desperate to be away from this place, so grateful that Bucky had told him he could go that he’d just taken off. He wouldn’t even have exchanged numbers with Peggy if she hadn’t stopped him on his way down the driveway and given him her number.

She hadn’t even asked for his, merely gave him hers and told him to text her if he wanted. Just to check in. Let her know he was safe, if he hadn’t wanted to talk to Bucky.

He’d done both, texting her just after the first time he’d texted Bucky.

Steve is grateful now, that Peggy isn’t pushing him along, closer and close to his cabin.

She hasn’t told him, but he’s pretty much certain Bucky has been staying there this whole time. Steve’s not sure how he feels about that.

He’s not sure how he feels about any of this.

He’s only sure of the dread.

“It’ll be dark soon,” he says, eventually.

“Yes,” Peggy agrees. “Are you ready for this?”

Steve laughs, mirthless. He takes a moment to gather himself, gather his magic around himself in something like what he’d like to think is a shield but is really more like a security blanket. Whatever, it makes him feel a little better.

“Not at all,” he says. “Do you think he’ll even talk to me?”

“Yes,” Peggy says, plain and blunt. “I think you may be the only person he will really talk to.”

That feels like far more responsibility than Steve wants. He doesn’t want someone else’s well-being in his hands. He’s not good enough for that. He’s done too much, all in the name of survival.

“Gods,” he mutters. He takes a breath. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Peggy smiles again. She pokes him in the stomach. “We’re not going to the gallows, Steve.”

Steve sighs. “I know.”

“So dramatic,” she teases.

Steve smiles, a little. “I’m nervous. I’ve been dreading this.”

“I know. He won’t hurt you.”

Steve laughs again, still without mirth. “He can’t hurt me, Peggy. Not without hurting himself.”

“Perhaps. Though it seems like Pierce sure managed to do so.”

Steve pulls back. “That’s low, Peggy.”

She just gazes at him. “James is a different man. You do not need to fear him.”

“Don’t I?” 

“No, you don’t.”

“I don’t think I believe you. I don’t think I can.”

She nods. “I know. Hopefully, you will someday.”

Steve shrugs, because he doubts that. He turns towards the woods, towards the cabin he can’t see, hidden by trees and the fast approaching gloaming, and sets off. Peggy keeps pace next to him.

“I’m sorry,” he says as they walk.

“Apology accepted,” she says.

“I’m not handling this very well,” he adds. He’s not handling much of anything all that well these days. Some are better than others.

Some are worse.

“That’s not exactly a surprise, Steve. I think I’d be very worried if you were taking everything entirely in your stride.”

Steve sighs. “I was good at it, for a long time. Every time things got worse, or he used to me to hurt more people, take more power from people who didn’t deserve to be stripped of it at a whim, I just… went with it, and tried not to think about it.”

“You did what you had to, to survive.”

“I don’t think I was really surviving.”

“You numbed yourself to it because otherwise you would have gone mad.”

“Yes,” Steve agrees. “That’s what my therapist says.”

“There is no shame in surviving. We all survived.”

“We did,” Steve agrees. His situation may not be… ideal, or what he’d wanted or planned for—

_You planned to be dead, Steve_ , he thinks.

—but he is here.

And something is wrong with Bucky.

And they are bonded. Steve has a certain responsibility to Bucky. To survive. To try and thrive, even.

And to help Bucky do the same.

That’s what these bonds are supposed to be about, anyway. An agreement. A pact, a covenant between two beings of power, to enhance each other’s power and protect both of them.

It had never worked like that, with Pierce.

Maybe it is time to suss out the lay of the land with Bucky.

He can do this. He can.

Steve feels it when they get closer to his cabin. He can feel the power in the land, the way it recognizes him. It feels like he’s being welcomed back.

He knows when they’re about to cross the threshold he’d set up around his cabin. The shielding he’d put in place has degraded considerably, but the tatters of those shields remain.

Peggy’s hackles rise as they cross, but she doesn’t say anything. He knows already that she means him no harm, so the shield wouldn’t react to her. She must be sensitive enough to magic to feel them there.

He wonders, briefly, if all the wolves can feel the shields there.

The cabin looks like it always has, just the same. His luggage is on the porch, right by the door. One of the others must have brought it down while Steve and Peggy were on their slow stroll.

Steve stops and looks. The only thing close to happiness he’d ever felt while under Pierce’s thumb had been in this small house, but he doesn’t want to go in. He doesn’t want to face down the years he’d spent there, the fear and sorrow that he’d leeched into the walls.

He wonders how Bucky can stand to be there. Can he not feel it at all?

Steve can feel it from the treeline.

“Steve,” Peggy says.

He looks up; she’s almost halfway between him and the door.

“Are you coming?”

“Give me a minute.”

“Very well.” Peggy subsides. Stands quietly while Steve takes deep, desperate breath after breath, willing his heart to slow.

After a few minutes, his breath comes slower, and his heart rate resembles something like normal.

“Okay,” Steve says, mostly to himself.

It’s another minute before he takes a step forward.

One step.

Two steps.

He can do this.

He can face down Bucky. The new Bucky. That he doesn’t know. The one that saved his life and bound them together all at once.

The Bucky he used to love, in another life.


	2. Chapter 2

Peggy’s phone buzzes before they’ve made it to the porch. She stops and pulls it out of her pocket, reads the message, and rolls her eyes.

Steve raises his eyebrows at her. She shows him the text.

_WTF are you doing here? Go away._

“Still not a morning person, huh?” Steve says. He’s trying to joke, but it falls flat.

Peggy just rolls her eyes again. “Definitely not. He shouldn’t even be up yet, really.”

“He never got up before he absolutely had to when we were young. It drove me insane.”

“He is a decadent creature,” Peggy allows. She sounds fond, though.

It’s Steve’s turn to roll his eyes. He crosses the porch and pushes open the door.

At first glance, the house looks the same. Perhaps it smells a bit musty, but Steve had expected that before he’d learned Bucky had basically moved in.

His phone buzzes. His head buzzes along with it. Steve ignores both. He wanders into the cabin, _his_ cabin, slowly crossing the living room to stand by the fireplace.

_I don’t want to be here_ , he thinks. He lets his eyes fall shut, and he takes a deep breath. Underneath all of his conflicting emotions, there’s something familiar. Something he doesn’t want to examine. Not here. Not now.

His phone buzzes again.

He doesn’t want to check it. Steve glances across the room, at Peggy who is standing in the doorway. She’s giving him a Look. One that tells him that she knows his thoughts, possibly better than he does himself.

He’s only putting off the inevitable. He pulls his phone out of his pocket. He has two texts. Both are from Bucky.

_Steve?_

And then, _So then why are you here?_ There’s an angry emoticon at the end of that one.  >:(

_Fuck off_ , Steve thinks. _Get out of my head._

**Stop thinking so fucking loud then** , he hears. Only not actually. Not with his ears. He thinks it, but it is not his thought.

So that’s a thing they can do. Or at least, Bucky can read his thoughts, and speak telepathically to him. That’s never happened before.

For a moment, Steve wants to laugh, and even the desire feels a little hysterical. At least it hadn’t been like that with Pierce.

This might be worse.

Gods, this is turning out awfully already, and Steve hasn’t even seen Bucky yet. He’s not really sure he wants to.

No, scratch that. He definitely doesn’t want to.

His sense of dread has had kittens, all filling him with even more dread. Some of it, however, now that he’s thinking about it, may not be his own.

It helps, actually, knowing that Bucky is just as nervous about seeing him as he is about seeing Bucky.

**You should go back to the house, Steve** , he thinks. Bucky again, talking in his head. It’s so _weird_.

He’s not sure if it’s Bucky’s intention or not, but the warning does nothing except piss Steve off.

_**NO**_ , he thinks, as loud as he can. **Just come out here already.**

“Lover’s spat?” Peggy asks, from across the room.

Steve can’t help it, he bursts into laughter. It’s as much from a desperate need to relieve some of the tension as from actual amusement.

Peggy seems to understand. She smirks at him.

Steve is still chortling to himself when a door down the hall opens. The guest room, he thinks, and there’s a feeling about that, but he doesn’t have the time or the desire to analyze it right now, to figure out what that feeling actually is.

He takes a deep breath and braces himself. It’s not really that he doesn’t want to see Bucky again. If he’s honest with himself— and he tries to be honest, at least with himself— he’s missed Bucky more in the last few months than he had in the previous several centuries.

Even when I had nothing, back then, I had him. It had been un-true for far, far longer than it had ever been true, but it had always been a small comfort to Steve, when things were at their darkest and most hopeless— once upon a time, someone had truly cared for him, about him. Had liked him for himself, and not as an object to be possessed, a source of power to be used against whomever stood on their way.

Apparently cared for him more than he’d ever realized, if Bucky had been captured and turned while searching for Steve.

Even when Steve had been preparing to die in order to get away from Pierce, finally, _FINALLY_ , Bucky had been a source of comfort. Steve thought he’d finally get to see him again. 

Well, that part was true, anyway. Just not in the way he’d thought.

He’s not just going to wait around for Bucky to grace them with his presence, though. Steve isn’t patient enough for that. He’s too nervous for that.

“I’m getting a drink,” he says. “Want something, Peggy?”

“No thank you, Steve. I’m all right.”

Steve nods, and heads for the kitchen. He’s putting it off; avoiding. Running scared, maybe. But he’s going to let it happen, for just a few more minutes. Just a few.

Just long enough for a glass of water.

Steve gets down a glass and fills it from the tap.

He can see the crows in the tree-line, one on them is on the clothesline out back. They are chattering to each other, and he longs to go say hello. They’re probably all very unhappy with him. The sound of them is comforting. He listens to them while he drinks his water.

Peggy’s voice floats in from the other room.

“You look like shit, James.”

There’s a sound of something like a scuffle, and then a frustrated noise.

“Leave me alone, Pegs, I’m fine.” Bucky sounds awful, his voice croaky under the petulant whine.

“You look like a literal corpse. You’ve not been eating either, have you. This is ridiculous, James, I’m getting Morita down here and you _will_ eat if I have to open his veins myself.”

“Margaret.” Bucky is probably going for threatening, but he’s not getting there.

“James.” Peggy is, though.

Steve ducks back into the room.

Peggy was right, Bucky really does look awful. Grey skin, pale and thin, sunken eyes, the whole deathly pallor thing. He looks starved and exhausted.

Steve is pretty sure at least some of that is because of him. Because he’d left. Because their bond has been stretched too thin for too long, and it somehow started draining something from Bucky. Or something like that. Steve doesn’t know if Bucky will even tell him, but he is starting to realize that it’s been taking a toll on him too. It’s just that he’s been in denial about it, ignoring it, and not really noticing it in his euphoria over being free.

He’s been sick more often the past couple of months, though. Achey, too. More headaches than he used to get, which is kind of surprising because his whole life used to be a headache, to vastly understate things. He’s been sleeping a lot, and perhaps not just because he’s safe enough to sleep deeply and peacefully, without waking up at the tiniest of sounds.

“Jim will be here shortly,” Peggy says, interrupting Steve’s staring at Bucky.

And Bucky’s staring at him. Gods, Steve had been so caught up he hadn’t even noticed.

“Hey, Buck.”

“Hi, Steve.”

“Oh good lord,” Peggy adds.

Steve looks at Peggy, notices Bucky do the same.

“You lot deserve each other,” she says, cryptic, and she walks out of the room, leaving them looking at each other, confused.

“How’ve you been?” Bucky asks, after a moment.

Steve shrugs. “I’m all right. You don’t look so great.”

“I’m fine,” Bucky says, defensive. Steve can practically see his hackles rising, his walls going up.

Steve rolls his eyes. “I can tell when you’re lying.”

The ghost of a smile crosses Bucky’s face. “Isn’t that supposed to be my line?”

“That was a long time ago, Bucky.”

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees, all sardonic exhaustion and world-weariness. “I know.”

Steve shifts his weight from foot to foot. He doesn’t know what to say to that. He doesn’t know what to do. So he just stands there.

They both just stand there, and the silence goes awkward very quickly, turning the air sour, twisting in Steve’s gut. He wants to crawl under the couch and hide. It’s only vaguely comforting that he can feel that Bucky wants pretty much the same thing.

“So,” Steve says. And stops. Nothing else wants to come out, for a long minute. “You’ve been staying here.”

_Brilliant_ , he thinks, and that, at least, is his own thought.

Bucky smiles, just a little bit, just a bare up-tilt of the corners of his lips before it’s gone again. “Yeah. It’s nice here.”

Steve shrugs. His feelings on his cabin are complex, to say the least. It was always a haven, but it had still been in hell. “It’s not so bad. It’s good, I guess.” He glances around. “You haven’t rearranged anything. It doesn’t look like it, anyway.”

“Not yet. I wanted to—“ Bucky glances away, his eyes skittering around the room. Steve thinks if he didn’t have the preternatural stillness of a vampire, he’d be shuffling his feet. “I dunno. Get to know you better? Through your space? I didn’t want to change anything. How is where you are?” Bucky pauses. “Where are you, these days?”

Steve lets the subject change happen. “New York. It’s nice. I’ve made a couple of friends. It’s weird. It’s been a long time. I like it there.”

“You want to go back.” It’s not a question.

“Yes,” Steve says anyway. It’s the truth. He doesn’t want to stay here any longer than he has to. He’s afraid that as long as he has to is going to be altogether far too long.

“You don’t want to be here.”

“Not really, no. What do you expect?”

Bucky shrugs. Steve gets the feeling that Bucky didn’t really know what to expect.

“But you came back.”

It’s Steve’s turn to look anywhere but at Bucky. “Something is wrong,” he says. His voice comes out soft. “I got a feeling that something was wrong; I didn’t think it was right to ignore it.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Bucky insists.

Steve snorts, because that is patently untrue. “You look like a corpse.”

“Your face looks like a corpse!” Bucky retorts.

Steve blinks at him. Bucky looks surprised at himself. Surprised that he’d said that, perhaps. 

After a moment, they both burst into giggles.

“Still the picture of maturity,” Steve says, when they’ve calmed down.

“Oh fuck off,” Bucky says, but the tension has eased, a little bit.

The tension has eased, but the awkwardness of the silence that comes after they’ve both finished giggling is still overwhelming. Thankfully, Peggy chooses that moment to come back from wherever she’d been (Steve had completely forgotten that she’d even gone; he doesn’t like what that says about his attention, about the thrall of being in Bucky’s presence) with Morita in tow.

“All right, Sarge,” Morita announces, clapping his hands together, “pick a vein, any vein— Jesus fucking Christ you really do look like a corpse, Pegs wasn’t kidding, was she?”

Steve blinks.

Bucky rolls his eyes, but he’s shuffling across the room to Morita, and Steve can feel Bucky’s bloodlust like it’s his own and this is Steve’s cue to GTFO. He catches Peggy’s eye and she nods at him, giving him tacit permission to flee.

Which Steve does, posthaste.

——

The crows are still out behind the cabin, chattering away to each other. 

“Hello, crows,” Steve says as he crosses the yard.

They all flutter into the air before settling again, yelling at him to a bird.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry. There wasn’t time to tell you where I was going, before.”

One of the crows—they don’t really have names, but he knows them all— settles on his shoulder and nips at his ear, just once. 

“I didn’t know where I was going, before! I swear. I should be able to let you know, this time. If you want to come visit me in New York.”

The crows chatter a bit amongst themselves, and Steve smiles, not pushing them to decide. They are their own, he is merely a friend to them. Sometimes they bring him shiny things. Sometimes they act as familiars, giving him a focus to pull magic through, a way to hone his magic to pinpoint precision and devastating effect, when needed.

He’d never really been able to use their abilities to their full extent, before. Perhaps they will allow him now.

“Am I forgiven?” he asks.

They all look at him, all five crows. It’s a little uncanny to have all their attention at once. Steve waits under their scrutiny. After a few moments, they all nod at him, and go back to chattering.

“Thanks, guys,” Steve says, relieved. The one who’d been perched on his shoulder launches itself into the air and rejoins its compatriots. Steve starts walking, out to the edge of the yard, where his wards still hum a little, even though they’re weakened and almost to the point of collapse. Steve walks counterclockwise around the perimeter, trailing his fingers along the wards, feeding them just a touch of himself, just enough to solidify them a bit. He thinks about what he wants them to do, now that he’s back here. He wants them to be friendly to Bucky, although he’s not sure that’s the best idea ever.

Things are complicated.

Steve walks around the house three times, and then he sits down and leans against one of the trees. The crows flutter down around him, playing with each other and generally keeping him company. Steve appreciates it, probably more than he can put into words. It’s a tiny thread of normalcy, something to hang on to.

After a while, he gets up and dusts himself off, and goes back into the house. Peggy, Bucky, and Jim are all sitting around his table. Jim has a glass of something in front of him, and a plate with a banana peel and a few cookies in front of him. He’s laughing and chatting with Peggy while Bucky fidgets at his side, wrapping his wrist.

It’s like the Red Cross. Like Morita has just donated blood (which Steve supposes he had, in a very direct fashion), and they’re making sure his blood sugar isn’t about to drop, giving him food and drink to help him recover so he can go about his day.

“I’m fine, Sarge.”

“I know,” Bucky replies. He’s concentrating on wrapping the dressing around Morita’s wrist. His hands are shaking. He looks ten shades better than he had when Steve had first seen him.

There’s color in his cheeks. Even his hair looks better. Healthier.

“You sure I didn’t take too much?” Bucky asks. His voice is soft, Steve barely hears him, but he can feel Bucky’s concern, his worry that he’d been too greedy, too hungry, too needy.

“Nah, I’m good. The woozies already passed. Just needed some food. Hey, Bucky, look at me.”

Steve watches as Bucky lifts his head, looks at Morita.

“We’re good.” Jim nods at Bucky, and Steve feels relief wash over him like a balm, like warmth on a cold day.

Steve feels like he’s interrupting some intimate moment that he shouldn’t be seeing, shouldn’t be a part of. He has no place here, not really. He has no idea how long Bucky and his little pack have been together, been taking care of each other, but it’s obvious that they do take care of each other. They watch out for each other. They’re a family; they love each other. Six wolves and a vampire. It’s not the weirdest thing Steve’s ever heard of, but he’s an outsider here.

He can’t be a part of this. He doesn’t belong here.

He watches as Peggy lays her hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “Go run it off,” she tells him, gentle and soft. “Let it settle.”

Bucky nods once, jerky. He wrings his hands together as he stands.

“I’ll finish wrapping Jim’s arm, make sure he eats everything and drinks his soda.”

“Thanks,” Bucky murmurs. And he disappears out the door, not even glancing at Steve as he brushes past him.

Steve blinks in his absence, at the wave of lust that sweeps through him, desire, need. He doesn’t know where it came from, and he doesn’t know what it means.

He’s starting to have an inkling where it came from, an idea. He needs to sit with it for a while, though. Before he can accept it. Before he can come to terms with it, learn how to process it. Before he can figure out what to do with these feelings, the ones that aren’t his own.

Steve looks to Peggy, who’s finishing tying off the bandage around Jim’s arm. “Everything okay?”

Peggy shrugs. “He’ll be fine. Now he’s broken his fast he’ll eat more often, and things will settle.” She doesn’t say anything about Steve being here, about the effect that is having on Bucky. She doesn’t accuse him of fucking Bucky up, but Steve hears it anyway. 

Steve crosses the room and sits down across from Morita, who is working his way through his cookies with singular focus.

“Why did Bucky leave like that?”

“Oh, he gets a bit wild whenever he feeds on one of us. Something about the wolf, as far as we can figure.”

Jim nods. “He has to go howl at the moon a bit; he’ll be fine.”

Steve wonders if the lust is tied up with that too, with feeding from one of the wolves, or if it comes from feeding in general. He wonders who Bucky is lusting after.

“You really okay?” he asks.

Jim smiles at him. “Yeah, I’m fine. We’ve all donated before. One time, Bucky fed on Dugan when he was drunk and they both ran naked through the center of the town we were staying in, literally howling. It was great.”

“It almost got us all arrested and exposed,” Peggy adds, but she’s smiling just a little bit. Just enough that Steve can tell she was amused by it even if she’d probably read both men the riot act after the incident.

“Are you going to stay here?” Jim asks around the final cookie. “Or you gonna come back up to the house with us?”

“Oh, I’m definitely not going back there,” Steve says. “I have every intention of never going in that house again. No offense to you guys, but that’s not going to happen.”

Jim shrugs, none taken. “No problem, ace. We’ll just come give you and Sarge hell down here.” Jim grins at him, and a few minutes later he’s taken his leave, and headed back towards the house, whistling as he goes.

“You going to be all right down here with Bucky?” Peggy asks him, when she’s getting ready to leave.

“I’ll be fine,” Steve assures her. He feels like a broken record, insisting over and over that he’ll be fine, but he really will be. He can handle Bucky. He can handle himself, despite how appearances may be deceiving. He’s survived this long, hasn’t he? And Bucky doesn’t seem to actively hate him, at least. It’s a nice change, being bound to someone who doesn’t seem to hate him, who only wants him around for the power he can provide, the prestige.

Awkwardness never killed anyone.

At least, he’s pretty sure.

“You should talk to him, Steve,” Peggy says. Pleads, almost. “Just talk to him. I think you both need to talk to each other.”

Steve shrugs. Even to himself, it feels petulant. Childish. He doesn’t _wanna_. It’s too much; there’s too much there that he never put into words before, and then spent centuries trying to forget. It’s too huge.

Peggy doesn’t roll her eyes at him, but he can tell she wants to. “I’ll come down tomorrow evening, shall I?”

“Sure. I’ll make dinner.”

“Lovely. See you then. Talk to Bucky.” Peggy kisses Steve’s cheek, and then she leaves.

Steve is left alone in his cabin for the first time since he’d left all those months ago, when Bucky had told him he could go. It feels weird. Already it doesn’t feel like it’s his own anymore. Despite the fact that he hadn’t really rearranged any of Steve’s things, it feels more like it belongs to Bucky now.

Except, perhaps….

Steve pulls up the door in the floor of the dining room and descends into his workshop.

This still feels like it’s his. 

Nothing down here has been touched, has been disturbed or moved around, and it’s a relief to Steve. He gets out his most recent notebook and starts an inventory of all of his stores, making notes on what needs to be thrown out, what can be salvaged, what he needs more of. He wants to take as much of it as he can with him when he goes back to New York. 

If he goes back to New York. 

Steve tries to ignore that little niggle of doubt, and he concentrates on what’s in front of him, losing himself in the minutia of the herbs and stones and various things he uses to aid his magic. Lets himself make plans for a couple of concoctions, a couple of potions. 

Mostly he doesn’t need potions or physical things to do magic, but he likes the old ways, the ways his mother had taught him. It makes him feel connected to her, though she’s been dead for centuries.

He doesn’t know how long it’s been when he hears Bucky calling his name. 

“Steve? Are you still here?”

“I’m down here,” Steve calls back.

A moment later, Bucky steps down onto the first step into the cellar and leans over, peering into the dim room at Steve.

“What’re you doing?”

Steve holds up his notebook and pen. “Just making notes on what I’ve still got down here.”

“I didn’t touch anything,” Bucky says, a little defensive.

“I know.”

“Okay.”

For a moment, they stare at each other, silent and awkward.

“I’m gonna go… do stuff,” Bucky says, eventually. “Are you staying here?”

“Yes,” Steve replies. “Is that an issue?”

“No, it’s your place. Do you mind if _I_ stay here?”

Steve shakes his head. “Mi casa es su casa.”

“Okay. Cool. Thanks. I’ll… see you around?”

“Yes,” Steve agrees. What else is he supposed to say?

They’re going to be the world’s most awkward roommates. 

This is ridiculous.

Bucky nods, once, and disappears again.

Steve goes back to his notes, but his concentration is broken now, and he can’t seem to get back into the groove he was in. After another half hour of trying and mostly doodling in the margins of his notebook, he puts it aside and goes back upstairs. His suitcase and backpack are still where he left them, on the porch, so he brings those in and takes them down to his old room.

It feels a little lonely, a little dusty and musty, so he opens the windows and leaves the door open while he unpacks his clothes and things and puts them away. He thinks maybe he should do some laundry soon.

And eat. He’s suddenly famished. He has no clue if there’s any food in the house, what with no one living here except for a vampire.

In Steve’s experience, vampires don’t eat much regular food.

His pack must come down here fairly often though, because the kitchen is pretty fully stocked. Thank god. There’s even beer in the fridge. Steve cracks one open while he puts together a sandwich and some Cheezits to eat. He takes it all outside with him and sits with the crows to eat, sharing a little here and there with them.

He stays outside with them for a while, enjoying the night air and the quiet. He doesn’t know where Bucky had gone off to, but he assumes that he’s around somewhere.

Somewhere around dawn, when the sky is just starting to get a little bit lighter, the exhaustion and the long day of travel and dealing with awkwardness all catch up to him, and Steve decides it’s late enough to just go to bed. Everything will be a little clearer after a good night’s sleep, he’s sure of it.

Bucky is curled up on the couch in the living room, reading a book when Steve goes through.

“I’m going to bed,” Steve says.

“Good night,” Bucky replies, sounding as though he’s not really paying any attention at all, and he’s answering without really being aware of it.

Steve brushes his teeth and washes his face, and puts on his pajamas. He settles into bed, thinking he probably should’ve changed the sheets first but also thinking that he’s way too tired to get up and do it now.

He’s asleep within minutes.

—— 

Steve dreams. He dreams that Bucky comes to his door and looks at him for a moment, before disappearing again.

He dreams that he gets up and goes after Bucky, finds him in his own room settling in for the night. The blackout curtains on the windows flutter in some non-existent breeze.

Bucky says something but he can’t hear it, or it’s not really words, or something. It doesn’t matter, though, because dream-Bucky throws back a corner of the covers, a clear invitation for Steve to join him, and Steve does.

The dream fades after that, into peace and warmth and darkness, into a complete lack of pain for the first time since Steve had fled Bucky’s side, all those months ago.


	3. Chapter 3

They’ve been pining after each other for centuries, as far as Peggy can tell, and she finds it all a little bit ridiculous. She empathizes with both of them, but it’s still a little bit ridiculous.

She knows that Steve’s had a rough time of it, but Bucky certainly has too, being under Zola’s thumb, his memories wiped every time they resurfaced, and his mind controlled. Forced to do Zola’s will, forced to kill for him. So things haven’t been really good for either of them for a long time, probably since they’d last been together.

And now they’re being all awkward and dumb around each other.

Men. Such silly creatures. It’s really too bad sometimes that she’s utterly surrounded by them.

She’s going to give them a little bit of time, before she goes back. She’d told Steve her thoughts on the whole situation. 

Well, not precisely, but she’d told him that he needs to speak to Bucky. They need to talk to each other. They need to just admit how they feel for each other, because it’s obvious. Things would be much easier between them, if they were on the same page about their feelings. It would be easier for them to move forward, from the same page, from a place where they’re both aware that they’re hopelessly gone on each other. It’s so obvious how they both feel, and how afraid they both are that the other one doesn’t feel the same.

It’s obvious to her, at least.

She’s not going to interfere too much, though. Much as she’d like to just knock their heads together. It won’t work if they don’t figure things out on their own. But that doesn’t mean she can’t encourage them to figure it out and use their words like adults.

So she gives them some time before she goes to check in on them, to make sure they’re both still alive, and haven’t simply expired of pining. She waits until the middle of the night, in case just being in the same house is enough to get both of them sleeping a bit better.

Bucky had looked like death warmed over yesterday, and Steve hadn’t looked much better, pale and withdrawn, holding himself like he’s in constant pain. She’s not even sure he’s aware of how gingerly he’d been moving, how he’d been holding himself so carefully.

Again, things that are obvious to Peggy that aren’t obvious to other people.

She mentions it to Jim, just in passing, when he comes through her office that night. She’s been mulling over the books, just making sure everyone’s finances are in order. She’s been looking in on Steve’s financial situation as well, not that she needs to, the man is richer than Croesus these days, since Bucky had refused to accept any of Pierce’s money, not even the payment Steve had promised for killing the master vampire.

Not that they’d been much in need of that payment, they’re also doing quite well for themselves these days, between the protection details the Howlies take on, her discreet investments and the frankly obscene amount of money they’d stolen from Zola after Bucky had broken free and killed practically his whole retinue.

But she still keeps track of things. Better safe and careful than sorry.

She mentions Steve and Bucky to Jim when he’s in her office, and he looks at her like she’s grown a second head.

It’s not just her seeing things, though. She knows it. It’s just that none of the lads are really concerned with matters of the heart. Or they haven’t seen Steve and James together enough to notice.

Or they’re just as oblivious as Steve and Bucky are themselves.

It’s probably that.

Still, she’ll keep her peace, for now.

She goes down to the cabin around dinner time, since Steve had invited her. When she gets there, the cabin is dark, which is. Odd.

She lets herself into the cabin, as she always does. Bucky never bothers to lock the door. Actually, she’s not even sure the door has a lock. She doesn’t want to think about that though, what Steve not being allowed to have locks on his home means.

“James?” she calls. “Steve?”

There’s no answer. The house is quiet and still. Peaceful.

Maybe they’re still asleep. That would be excellent. Bucky has been in desperate need of more sleep, and she imagines Steve is as well. She doesn’t know the full extent of the effects their separation had taken on them, with the bond between them stretched so thin, but she knows Bucky hasn’t been sleeping.

She goes down to Steve’s room. The bed is rumpled, but Steve isn’t there.

“Steve?” she calls again. 

There’s still no answer.

Peggy goes to the other bedroom, where Bucky’s been sleeping. Or at least spending the daylight hours.

They’re in bed together. For a moment, she just blinks at them. They’re curled up together, wrapped around each other. Bucky’s arms are around Steve, and Steve’s head is tucked under his chin.

They look peaceful.

Well, Bucky still looks gray and washed out, sick. Like he hasn’t been eating. If she hadn’t watched him feed from Morita earlier, she wouldn’t have believed that he’d eaten anything at all.

Steve seems more at ease, though. He’s still pale and drawn, but he doesn’t seem like he’s in as much pain as he had been.

She leaves them to sleep, because she knows they both need it.

——

Peggy doesn’t start worrying until she gets up towards the end of the next day, while the sun is still in the sky, and goes to check on them again.

They’re still asleep. As far as she can tell, neither of them has really moved.

That’s an awful long time for them to be asleep. Twenty four hours or more? She crosses the room and lays her hand on Steve’s shoulder, to try and shake him awake—

—And opens her eyes to find herself on her ass on the other side of the room.

Ow. Fuck. What the hell just happened?! Peggy climbs to her feet, rubbing at her hip, glaring at the pair in the bed. What the hell?! It takes a moment for it to sink in, what must have happened.

Apparently, Steve hadn’t wanted to be disturbed, had somehow interpreted her trying to wake him as a threat, and had flung her across the room to defend himself, defend Bucky. 

Okay. Perhaps she’ll let them sleep on. They must really need it. 

——

Later, Dugan and Gabe find her. “You seen Sarge?” Dugan asks.

“No, why?” 

Both of them shrug, but they must want Bucky for something.

“Last I saw him, he and Steve were asleep.”

Dugan, at least, is skeptical. “He hasn’t been sleeping much lately. What aren’t you telling us, Pegs?”

Peggy shrugs and smiles. “Not a blessed thing, Dugan.”

He narrows his eyes at her. “I guess we’ll go down and see for ourselves.”

“You do that.”

She gets a snap from Gabe about twenty minutes later, a picture of Steve and Bucky still asleep, still wrapped around each other, with “wtf” written over it.

A few moments later, Monty, Jim, and Jacques are in her office, all of them with various versions of “what’s going on with Sarge and his witch” on their lips.

Peggy smiles and doesn’t mention her bruised behind, and they all troop down to the cabin. Dugan and Gabe are standing in the living room, talking quietly to each other.

“They’re not waking up,” Gabe says. “I yelled and everything.”

Peggy crosses her arms and says nothing. Dugan is looking at her suspiciously, but she says nothing. Nothing at all.

“How long have they been asleep?”

Peggy shrugs. “Thirty six hours or so? Give or take a few, I suppose.”

“That’s ridiculous. We should wake them up.”

Peggy shrugs again. 

Between the five men, they decide Dugan is going to go in there and try to shake them awake.

Peggy says nothing to dissuade them. Someone else deserves a bruised arse like hers.

Steve doesn’t disappoint her, and she watches as he moves only enough to make a shooing motion at Dugan, and sends him flailing across the room to land in a heap by the door.

“OW!” 

Peggy chuckles. “I sympathize, Dugan.”

He glares up at her. “You knew that would happen!”

“I’ve the bruised arse to prove it,” she replies, sweet.

“Ow, Pegs, you’re the worst.” Dugan gets up, rubbing at his aching butt and glaring all around at everyone chuckling at his misfortune.

“Anyone else going to have a go?” Peggy asks.

There are varying replies of “hell, no” from the rest of her pack.

“We let them sleep,” she says. “They clearly need it.”

Everyone shrugs. Dugan glares at her some more, but she’s long been immune to his ire. His bark has always been worse than his bite.

“I’ll check in on them again in a few hours,” she adds.

The lads all head back up to the house and their various pursuits, Dugan grumbling the whole way. Peggy takes one final glance back at Steve and Bucky, still wrapped up in each other and fast asleep, before she gently shuts the door and leaves the cabin, trailing behind the rest of her pack.


	4. Chapter 4

The immense sense of peace he feels is more than enough to send him back into sleep at least the first few times he stirs, and it stays with him when he finally does wake up and stay awake. Warmth and peace suffuse his whole body, and there is a distinct lack of the aches and pains that have become normal over the past few months. He is held in strong arms, wrapped up and so unbelievably comfortable that he spends a solid two minutes convinced that he’s still asleep and dreaming. His thoughts are syrupy slow and soft, gently floating through his mind one at a time, no urgency to any of them, no need to grasp or hold on to them.

He sort of remembers dreaming before, wild dreams of blood and moonlight. Something about them was unsettling, but not so much so as to be a nightmare, and not enough to pierce the calm and peace he’s under now.

He doesn’t want to move.

Even when he realizes that he isn’t in his own bed, he doesn’t want to move. Even when he realizes there’s only one person he could possibly be all tangled up with like this, he doesn’t really want to move. That was the best night of sleep he’s had in recent memory, and he doesn’t want to disturb it. He doesn’t want to shatter that peace.

He remembers something like this, from a very, very long time ago. They hadn’t had many opportunities, to sleep curled together like this, twined around each other, but it had happened. He remembers it, because it’s one of those things that he’s clung to since Pierce first took him, since he first realized that there was no getting away from him, not with his life.

Steve knows those cherished memories are rose-tinged with age and nostalgia, with desire and the desperate need to keep something pure and true for himself through the centuries of servitude.

This might be better. Might be. For now. It likely won’t stay that way.

But it feels so nice, right now. The sense of peace he is still floating on. The tide of what he can only feel is love. He knows it’s out of place, not quite his own, but it still feels wonderful, warm and lovely and so, so desperately desired. It’s been so long since he’s felt anything even remotely like this, like love.

Bucky’s nose is pressed against the top of his head, and it should be weirder that he’s curled against Bucky’s chest and not hearing or feeling his heartbeat, but it’s not that strange (Steve has been surrounded pretty much exclusively by vampires for the last couple of centuries; the only humans around had been the servants, the thralls, the food, and they mostly hadn’t wanted anything to do with Steve. Not that he’d wanted much to do with them. They’d all chosen their life, to a person). 

Bucky makes a grumbly noise into Steve’s hair, and Steve startles with it.

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

“You’re thinking too loud,” Bucky mumbles back.

“Sorry,” Steve says again.

Bucky shrugs, but he doesn’t let go. “Go back to sleep. It’s not late enough.”

Steve finds himself smiling into Bucky’s chest. That, at least, hasn’t changed. It’s reassuring, in a way. But his bladder is making itself known, now that Steve’s awake.

“The sun’s still up a little,” Bucky adds.

“Buck, I gotta pee.”

Bucky makes a noise, little more than an amused huff, but he lets go.

Steve climbs out of bed, stretches his arms over his head, groaning when his back cracks and pops, and then his wrists, and then his knees. He shuffles down the hall to the bathroom. He washes his hands when he’s done, and then brushes his teeth because his mouth sort of feels and tastes like something died in it. He wanders into his room and grabs his phone from the nightstand where he’d left it when he’d gone to bed last—

Holy fuck.

He’s still staring at his phone when he goes back into the guest room. Bucky’s room.

Bucky is still in bed where Steve had left him, but he’s staring at his phone as well.

“Buck—“

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees.

Steve glances at him. Bucky’s eyes are wide. He sits up in the bed, still looking at his phone.

Steve sits on the side of the bed.

“Did we—?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says again. 

“Three days?!”

“Just about.”

Steve twists around and glares at Bucky. “Why are you so— So—?”

“So what?”

Steve glares some more. “Why aren’t you upset about this?”

Bucky shrugs. “Because I just had the best night of sleep I’ve had in decades?”

Steve glares some more, but he can’t really argue with that. He’s starting to feel hungry, but other than that he feels good. Like he’d had a really satisfying, restful, solid night of sleep.

Which had apparently lasted just about three whole days.

It’s ridiculous to even think about, and Steve suddenly isn’t really sure why he’d been upset to start. Maybe it was just the surprise. He’s having a hard time holding on to it, though. Something about the warmth and peace still coursing through his veins, making everything else seem trivial in comparison. Trivial, unimportant, and far away.

Steve scrolls through the notifications on his phone. A couple of text messages from Peggy, and a text of a video from an unknown number; probably one of the wolves. Nothing major. It seems that not much has really happened while he and Bucky were sleeping the sleep of the—what? The dead? The bonded who’d been separated for months on end?

Is that a thing? Steve doesn’t know.

He doesn’t want to examine it right now. He’s not going to.

He makes a conscious decision, right then and there, to let it go for now. It’s done.

“Good plan,” Bucky mutters.

“Stop reading my brain.”

“Stop thinking so loud.”

Steve groans. “We’re going to have to work on this.”

Bucky shrugs. “Did you get the video Morita sent?”

“Is that who that’s from?”

“Yup. Apparently they tried to wake us up a couple of times.”

Steve knows he shouldn’t let Bucky change the subject like this, shouldn’t let himself be distracted from this thing that apparently their bond allows Bucky to do. But he lets it happen.

He doesn’t want a repeat of the awkwardness that’s been between them. He’s fairly sure it’ll come back soon enough, so it’s nice that it hasn’t yet. 

“I don’t remember anyone else coming in here.”

“We were asleep. You tossed a couple of them across the room.”

“Wait, what?”

“I mean, magically. Watch the video.”

Steve groans again, flopping back onto the bed. He pulls up the video on his phone and watches it, groaning the whole time, just a little, under his breath. Bucky chuckles at him.

Steve can feel his amusement.

He’s fairly certain now that this is where these feelings that don’t quite feel like his own are coming from. They’re coming from Bucky. He can feel what Bucky feels. 

So there’s that. He supposes it makes them something like even.

Steve drapes his arm over his eyes and drops his phone next to his head, just lays there sort of next to Bucky in bed for a while. They’re both quiet. He can hear Bucky moving a little, here and there, tapping on his phone. He imagines that Bucky is letting his pack know that they’re awake. Steve supposes that he should say something to Peggy. She was supposed to be coming over to eat, two days ago. 

It’s such a weird feeling, knowing that they’d slept for three days. Nothing like this has ever happened to Steve before.

He doesn’t know much about the bond they share. He’d never known much about the bond when Pierce had forced it on him, either. He barely remembers it happening, just the pain and the slow realization that he couldn’t just kill Pierce without it rebounding and killing him as well. It had taken so long for him to finally tire enough of living, of being Pierce’s magical plaything, of doing his dirty work for him, to finally do what needed to be done.

And that hadn’t quite worked out the way he’d meant it to.

He doesn’t remember Bucky bonding them, either. Perhaps it’s for the best.

Things feel different, though. Bucky can read his thoughts. He can feel Bucky’s emotions. If they’re apart for an extended length of time, it starts wearing on both of them. Aches, pains, headaches. Poor sleep. Apparently Bucky had a hard time eating, although that doesn’t seem to be a problem that Steve shared. He’d always been ravenous, and thought nothing of it. 

He’d never been separated from Pierce for very long, before. He has no idea if that’s a common side effect or not.

“I think I had your dreams,” Steve says into the quiet room. His arm is still over his eyes. 

“Oh?” Bucky replies, voice soft. Steve thinks he may be just as afraid of triggering the awkwardness that’s been between them as Steve is. Afraid of shattering the peace. Steve tries not to shatter it himself. 

“What did you dream about?” Bucky adds, after a few moments.

“Blood,” Steve replies. “And moonlight.”

Bucky chuckles. “That could be either of us, really.”

Steve shrugs, and smiles into the darkness behind his eyes. “Yeah, I guess it could be. I don’t dream about blood a lot though. Well, sometimes. Nightmares.”

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees. “Those were probably my dreams. Sorry.”

“No, no. It’s ok. It was just… different.”

“Do you think that’ll be a thing?” Bucky asks.

Steve shrugs again. He moves his arm and twists his head to look up at Bucky. “I don’t know.”

————

It’s a weird day. It passes slowly, in dribs and drabs. 

Steve eats. Bucky sits in the living room, enough in Steve’s line of sight that Steve can feel it when Bucky is watching him.

He watches Steve a lot.

Steve doesn’t say anything about it.

He goes out and walks around for about an hour and a half, just trying to get his muscles to loosen up a little, trying to get himself to relax. It almost works.

Bucky follows him. He never actually sees Bucky while he’s walking, but he can feel him there, the whole time. Watching him.

Steve doesn’t invite him to walk with him. He does talk to the crows as they wheel about overhead.

Steve does eventually text Peggy, and asks her if she’d be willing to take a rain check and come for dinner the next day. She responds in the affirmative, and Steve asks her what she’d like him to make. She tells him to make whatever he’s good at.

Steve asks her if she’s one of the people he threw across the room in his sleep, and he apologizes when she tells him she is, laughing.

Eventually, the day is over, and nothing has changed. 

Steve and Bucky have barely spoken to each other, after Steve had gotten up and gone for breakfast. Bucky had been his shadow all day, always just over there, out of reach. 

It’s like being in limbo. Some in-between place. In between where he wants to be, and where he is. In between home and elsewhere. In between his past and his future. Stuck here.

Steve plugs in his phone and sits down on his bed. He’s tired, exhausted somewhere deep down inside him. Bucky’s already in bed, he’s pretty sure, just from the way he’s feeling. Steve can already feel the pull towards him.

He wants to fight it, but he doesn’t. He’s so tired, and he finds himself missing that sense of peace he’d woken up with that morning. He’s tired, and he doesn’t want to fight the pull, the thing urging him to get up and go down the hall to Bucky’s room.

So, for once in his life he takes the easy path.

Steve gets up and walks down the hall. He knocks softly on Bucky’s door. He waits a moment, and then knocks again.

“Come in,” he hears.

Steve steps into the room, careful not to open the door too far. It’s not quite dawn, but it’s getting there, and beside that it’s just courteous to take care that sunlight doesn’t hit the vampire.

Bucky’s in bed already. He’s watching Steve, when Steve looks at him.

_This is stupid_ , Steve thinks.

Bucky shakes his head no, probably reading his mind again. He reaches over and pulls the covers away from the other side of the bed, a clear invitation. 

It’s an invitation that Steve had needed, and he doesn’t ignore it. 

“We’re not going to do this every night,” Steve murmurs as he lays his head on the pillow. 

“Okay,” Bucky agrees. He sounds half-asleep already, but he’s scooting closer to Steve, and dropping his arm over Steve’s waist. “We won’t do this every night.”

“We’re not,” Steve murmurs.

“We’re not,” Bucky agrees, again.

After that, they’re both asleep.

————

That sense of peace is back the next evening. A sense of belonging, of coming home. _Being_ home. Steve wants to hate it, hate what it means, but he can’t quite bring himself to condemn it. He stretches, slowly, and then wonders how long they slept. Behind him, beneath him, Bucky stirs.

Bucky pokes him in the side, just below his ribs, and Steve squirms, yelping, because Bucky _knows_ he’s ticklish.

“Time’zit?” Bucky mumbles, rolling away and blindly reaching for his phone. “’S’too early, Stevie. Lemme sleep.”

He seems to wake a bit more after that, though. Or he hears Steve’s worrying, afraid they slept for days again, because he rolls over completely and pulls his phone off the nightstand, checking the time.

“Ten hours,” Bucky says, soft.

Steve sighs. 

The spell is broken, though, the peace melted away, dissolved into mist and legend. Steve sits up, rubbing his eyes. He turns to look at Bucky, who has already dropped the phone beside himself in bed and curled up again, pulling the covers over his eyes. Steve takes that as— if not outright dismissal, because it doesn’t feel like that, it just feels like Bucky wants to go back to sleep for a little while longer before starting his day, then at least an okay for him to go.

“I’m going to go get breakfast.”

“Mrmph,” Bucky says.

Steve does as he said he would, he makes breakfast and eats it while watching the last of the light die outside, listening to the night sounds through the window in the kitchen. He takes a shower, gets dressed.

He texts Peggy, _hey, Pegs._

_Good morning, Steven,_ she replies after a few moments. _are we on for lunch today?_

_Definitely._

_Excellent. What time shall I come down?_

_Around midnight, I guess?_

_Sounds good. I’ll see you then. You doing okay?_

Steve stares at his phone for a few minutes before he responds to that. “I’m okay,” he murmurs to himself. “I’m fine. I’m okay.”

_I’m alright_

It’s almost ten minutes before Peggy responds. _Very well. See you in a bit._

He doesn’t know what that means.

—————

The rest of the week passes in much the same way as those first strange days: slowly, thick with tension and awkwardness.

After The Incident, they don’t sleep in the same bed anymore, and even though he’s only down the hall from Bucky, Steve starts to feel the distance quickly. He supposes Bucky is as well, if the bits of emotions he’s feeling here and there are any indication. His headaches start coming back. 

His magic is a little finicky, shorting out when he doesn’t want it to. It’s frustrating, when things don’t cooperate with him the way he wants them to. His magic has always been reliable, even in the darkest of times. The fact that it’s giving him trouble now is highly troubling.

He feels the distance between them keenly; he hadn’t felt it hardly at all when he’d been in New York and now he feels nothing else.

Steve misses him. He hates that.


	5. Chapter 5

“C’mon, Sarge!” Steve hears from above him.

He puts down the mortar and pestle as he looks at the ceiling above him. He can hear footsteps overhead, and Bucky’s muffled reply to whomever had spoken—Dugan, Steve is pretty sure.

There are three of them, if Steve is hearing the distinct footfalls correctly. Dugan, and maybe Monty, and—Peggy? 

Steve looks at the small cauldron over the bunsen burner, aflame on nothing but magic, and back at his notes. The potion is fairly delicate, but his heart hasn’t really been in it anyway and he’s not sure it’s going to turn out. It needs some time to boil though, and he can risk—

“Steve? Are you down here?” Peggy’s voice comes from where the trapdoor from upstairs is open. Steve had left it open; he’s not sure why. Perhaps because he’d known that Bucky would just open it back up again and peer down at him periodically with a hesitant, inquisitive look on his face. Checking on him, he supposes, but it grates nonetheless. At least this way, Bucky can give him the courtesy of pretending he’s just passing through the dining room where the trapdoor is, just calling down a polite hello and not actively making sure Steve hasn’t melted into the ether or magicked himself elsewhere.

“Yes,” he replies. There’s no point in pretending otherwise.

One of the others clomps over and steps down onto the top step, and then crouches. Dugan. He grins at Steve.

“We’re kidnapping Bucky for a while, alright with you?”

Steve shrugs. “Sure.”

Dugan claps his hands together, grin still on his face, and straightens up. “C’mon, Sarge!” he calls again, disappearing from Steve’s sight. “We’re going for a run!”

Steve can hear Bucky say something in reply, but his voice doesn’t carry the way Dum Dum’s does, so he can’t quite make it out. He can feel Bucky’s little thrill of excitement, though, at the thought of a run, a chase. A hunt.

Peggy comes down a few steps and looks at Steve. “Mind if I stay behind a bit?”

Steve shrugs again. He knows what this is. It’s a trap, for sure. 

“Okay.”

“Take your time,” she says, nodding at his spellwork. “I’ll put on the tea.”

Steve nods, and goes back to his mortar and pestle. He’s pretty sure this isn’t going to turn out, but he wasn’t really doing it for any real purpose other than to escape being under Bucky’s eyes for a little while anyway. He wraps it up shortly, snuffing out the flame under the cauldron with a thought, covering the mortar and the mixture of herbs it holds with a cloth, and wiping down the pestle and setting it down on the table. He marks his place in his notes and closes the spellbook, and then heads upstairs.

Peggy is in the kitchen, putting together the tea things. She smiles when she sees him. The others are already gone.

Steve gives her a suspicious look. 

Peggy sits, calm under his suspicion, and pours the tea for both of them. “Sugar?” she asks.

Steve shakes his head.

“Milk?”

Steve shakes his head again. “Peg, what’s—“

She holds up her hand to forestall him, and sets his cup of tea in front of him. Peggy takes tea very seriously; she’s English that way. Steve lets her finish. Lets her sit and sip her tea once, twice. He raises his eyebrows at her, waiting for her to speak. She’s got him cornered and they both know it. Steve waits.

Finally, she speaks. “Do you want to tell me?”

Steve sits back, crosses his arms. Thinks briefly of the past few weeks. Takes a moment to notice that Bucky feels— joyful. Contented. He hasn’t felt those things from Bucky before. Not in this life. It surprises him, a little. Makes him take an extra moment, before he answers Peggy.

“Tell you what?”

She gives him a look, pointed and direct. “Steve. You’re miserable.”

Steve snorts. _Oh, is that all?_ “Well, yes. Are you surprised?”

Peggy shrugs one shoulder, elegant and eloquent. “I wouldn’t know. You don’t talk to any of us.”

Steve scowls at her. “I lived here,” he grits out from between clenched teeth, “under Pierce’s thumb. For the better part. Of a century.”

Before that it was somewhere else. That place burned much more quickly than the estate did.

Peggy blinks at him. “Ah. I didn’t realize—“

“Of course you didn’t.” Steve stands, abrupt, and paces across the room to the window. The crows are in the yard, playing.

“I’m sorry, Steve,” she says softly.

Steve waves her off. There’s nothing that can be done to change any of it now. And Pierce, may he rot in hell for all eternity, is dead. Forever dead. Bucky took care of that. Steve is only sad that he wasn’t conscious to witness it. He takes a moment to shove the most overwhelming of his emotions down deep where he doesn’t have to deal with them too much, and goes back to the table.

“I wasn’t planning on staying here this long,” he admits. “I just wanted to make sure Bucky was okay, and then I was going back to New York. I have… something like a life starting there. I miss it.”

Peggy nods. 

“But being apart apparently affects both of us, and Bucky is here. So where does that leave me?” He doesn’t bother toning down the bitterness that has crept into his voice. Steve runs his hands through his hair, clenching and tugging just a little. The pull of it is comforting.

Peggy doesn’t say anything. What is there to say to that? There’s nothing she can do, except what she is doing: listening to him whine and be bitter about it.

He hates whining about it. He hates how bitter he is. He’s alive, isn’t he? He’s alive, and somehow his childhood best friend is also alive—sort of— and they’re bonded together. To each other. Where one of them goes now, so goes the other. 

“Come along,” Peggy says after a few minutes. “Let’s watch something deliciously trashy on tv.”

Steve finds a smile, thankful that she’s letting this go. “That works.”

——

He’s more or less asleep when Bucky finally returns to the cabin. He doesn’t really know when Peggy left, but she’d covered him with a blanket where he lay on the couch and left the tv on. Netflix is currently waiting for him to let it know if he’s still watching the Gossip Girl episode that they’d turned on.

Steve stretches and shifts a little when Bucky comes over to the couch and sits down gingerly at his hip.

“Mmm, you feel good,” Steve murmurs, asleep enough that his filters are gone—not that he has many filters even when he’s awake. But he hasn’t really mentioned this yet, not to Bucky. This whole empathy thing he’s got.

Bucky blinks at him for a moment, taking his statement seriously.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “I do, I guess.”

“Good hunt?”

He shrugs. “The guys all enjoyed it. I guess, yeah.”

Steve blinks at him, slow and syrupy. “You had fun too. Felt it. It was nice. Joy.”

Bucky blinks down at him again, processing. His feelings on the realization that Steve can feel them as well are complicated. The one that Steve feels the most is disappointment, probably in the fact that Steve has kept this from him until now. The assumption that Steve probably would’ve continued keeping this from him, if he weren’t half asleep and vulnerable. He’s not wrong.

“You should’ve told me.”

Steve shrugs. “Didn’t know how.”

Bucky looks away. “Not cool, Stevie.”

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. And he is. He’s been trying to work out how best to bring it up for a while now, now that he’s coming to terms with it himself.

Bucky looks back at him, and smiles a little, though it comes out more of a grimace. “We’re a mess, aren’t we? That’s what the guys say.”

Steve gives him a little smile back. He’s a bit more awake now, but not so much that he can’t say what he needs to say. “Peggy says too.”

“She would. She’s the mastermind. She just lets me pretend I’m the one in charge.”

“I’d gathered. Buck—“

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry I freaked out when you—You know.”

Bucky nods. “I’m sorry I almost bit you. I guess that’s not a thing that’s going to happen.”

Steve shakes his head, and then speaks. “No. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s not a requirement of the bond, as far as I can tell. Is it because of--?”

“I really don’t want to talk about it.” Steve turns his face away, blinking back tears. There’s always tears.

“Okay. Sorry.”

Steve shakes his head and squeezes his eyes shut. Breathes, and breathes, and breathes, until the breaths come a little easier. When he can open his eyes again, he’s fully awake, that sleepy peaceful feeling long gone. He can feel Bucky’s concern; he’s pretty sure he’d be able to feel it even if he didn’t have access to his emotions. He’s radiating concern, and under that Steve can feel his desire to—comfort him? Hold him close, at least. Gather him up and shield him. It’s nice, for all that it also makes him want to bristle and defend himself. He’s been taking care of himself for centuries in the face of far worse shit than anything Bucky has so far dished out. But it’s nice, too, and it’s a new feeling. New enough that he doesn’t really know what to do with it. He doesn’t know how to react.

Bucky takes care of that for him, making an aborted move towards him, reaching out, almost touching him before he stops. Freezes, really, like he’d just realized what he was doing and doesn’t know if it’s allowed. Steve turns his face toward his reaching hand, not quite touching, trying to make it clear it’s okay, that Bucky is allowed to touch him.

He does, laying his cool fingers against Steve’s cheek. Barely even there, but his touch almost burns against Steve’s skin.

“I haven’t been sleeping very well,” he admits. As if that wasn’t obvious, with him asleep on the couch in the middle of the night like this. He hadn’t even woken up when Peggy had left.

“Yeah, me neither. Stevie—“

“Hmm?” He’s letting himself drift again. Bucky’s hand against his skin is a cool anchor, the connection between them feels like safety right now, like belonging and home and everything he so desperately needs.

“I think we should go to New York.”

“Wait, what?” Steve isn’t sure he heard that right. Bucky hasn’t shown any inclination to go elsewhere since Steve had come back to the estate.

Bucky shrugs and looks away, takes his hand back. “You don’t want to be here. I don’t need to stay here. We should go.”

Steve blinks, and then blinks some more. And then blinks some more. And then a couple more times, trying to process. Of all the things he’d thought would come up in conversation, this wasn’t one of them.

“I never wanted to trap you here.” Bucky runs his hands over his face, through his hair, frustrated and not quite able to articulate what he’s trying to say. Steve can feel it. “I know you’ve been unhappy; I think I was avoiding thinking about it? Because I like that you’re here. I want—“

“What?”

If he still had a beating heart, Bucky would be blushing bright red. As it is, he’s not meeting Steve’s eyes, and he’s twisting his hands together in his lap. “To be near you.”

Steve doesn’t know what to say to that.

“And we can do that elsewhere. Where you won’t be miserable the whole time.”

“Okay,” Steve says, slowly, drawing the word out while he tries to think. He pushes himself up into a sitting position. He feels better, sitting up, though it brings him closer to Bucky. But he can look in his eyes, too.

“Peggy said something, a while back. About how unhappy you are. I didn’t want to listen to her. I wouldn’t listen to her.” Bucky shrugs. “I’m sorry. You were never happy here, were you?”

Steve shakes his head, because that, at least, is easy to answer. “Never.”

“Why didn’t you do something about it?”

Steve glares. “I did, didn’t i?”

Bucky glares right back at him. “You tried to kill yourself.”

“No, I just accepted that my death was inevitable. I didn’t want to die, there just wasn’t any other way out.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything; maybe he doesn’t know what to say.

“How did you get away?” Steve asks. He doesn’t want to talk about his past anymore. If he could never talk about it again, he’d be okay with that (except for not really, what with the psychologist that Sam had helped him find in New York). (Magic-user therapists, who knew that was a thing?)

“I killed Zola and his whole nest when I broke his mind-control. Well, everyone except for the wolves. They helped.”

Steve blinks. “And you helped me.”

“I did the same thing he did, Steve. I didn’t give you a choice.”

“Well, as I understand it, I was mostly dead at the time.” Somehow, Steve finds a smile.

“Steve, this isn’t a joke!”

Steve shrugs. “I’m allowed to joke about it if I want to.”

Bucky takes a moment, and a deep breath, and then nods. “Fair.”

Steve can feel his guilt, eating away at him. “You didn’t know,” he concedes. “How could you? I expected to go out too; I was okay with that. I didn’t know the Winter Soldier was you. We would’ve been square, you and I. You would’ve had all this, and I would’ve had peace. To be honest, I was hoping to see you again, wherever I ended up, so at least I got that part.”

“Do you hate me for it?” Bucky asks.

“No.”

“Have you forgiven me?” He doesn’t sound very hopeful.

“Not yet.”

Bucky nods. “I can live with that.”

As if he has a choice.

“Okay,” Steve says. “Okay.” And he’s saying okay to more than just Bucky’s pronouncement. He thinks he’s maybe saying okay to all of it. This is the way things are now; they have to work with each other, find their own balance. He may have been bonded to Pierce as well, but this bond, this one between him and Bucky is new, and they both need to work to figure it out.

Bucky shrugs. “Maybe—“

Steve raises his brow in question, and waits for him to go on.

“Maybe we could, I dunno, practice or something? When we get where we’re going. See what this thing does? It’s supposed to have benefits, right?”

He sounds unsure of himself, but he’s feeling hopeful, in Steve’s head. It’s sweet. Endearing as hell, if he’s honest with himself.

“I don’t really know, Buck. I mean, I guess so? But it’s not like he was super forthcoming about it, and it certainly never benefited me before.”

Bucky winces. But he says, soft and so quiet Steve almost doesn’t hear him, “I want this to be good for you, too.”

Steve is quiet for a minute, taking that in, absorbing the way Bucky is feeling right now. “Okay. We’ll work on it, then. I made a couple of friends while I was in New York who might be able to help us figure out what sorts of things we should be able to do with it.”

“Yeah?” His eyes light up with hope.

“Yeah, a couple of witches, another vampire. And Natasha.”

“Who’s Natasha.” It doesn’t sound like a question. More like a demand.

“She’s hard to explain, Buck. You just kinda have to meet her.”

He doesn’t fail to notice the little flare of jealousy that Bucky feels at that, but he doesn’t mention it, nor does Bucky. Steve just raises an eyebrow at him, and Bucky glares for a moment, before looking away.

“Anyway, I can do my job from anywhere,” Bucky says, after a few minutes.

“What do you do, anyway?” Steve hasn’t been able to figure it out. The wolves have all seemed to be enjoying a vacation or something along those lines. Setting up house, making it so they can live in the big house without the outside world knowing about it. Steve still hasn’t gone up there. Most days, he doesn’t even venture far from the cabin. He’d gone into town once, to pick up mail. After that time, Peggy had taken over that chore.

“Oh, we uh. We hunt. Things. That are worse than us.”

Steve thinks about that for a moment. “You’re a vampire hunter.”

Bucky shrugs. “Not usually, most of us just want to be left alone, especially the older ones who haven’t gone… supervillain like uh. Like you know who.”

But Steve is grinning, because: “You’re Bucky the vampire slayer.”

Bucky blinks at him, not understanding the reference. 

“I’ll show you later. So you hunt… things.”

“Yes. There are far worse things than vampires out there, Stevie.”

“And Peggy and the guys?”

“They help. They’re setting up a home base here, but we travel a lot. I can travel from New York, too. What about you?”

“What about me?”

“What have you been doing?”

Steve shrugs, because that is the question. What _has_ he been doing? “I’m still trying to figure that out.”

“Maybe I could help.”

“Sure, Buck. That’d be great.”

Bucky gives him a shrewd look, like he’s hearing Steve’s doubt. Hearing him wondering what he’s good for, if he can ever been good for anything again.

“You can be,” Bucky says, softly.

Steve chooses not to reply to that. Instead he pulls his legs up to his chest and sort of half-shoves Bucky off the couch so he can stand, and then stretch. “So when do you want to go to New York?”

Bucky shrugs. “Dunno. How long do you need to pack up?”

“Not long.”

“Okay. We can go tonight if you want. It’s almost sunrise, so after I get some sleep.”

Steve nods. This is real. This is happening. He’s getting out of here. With some extra baggage, sure, but he’s getting out of here.

“I need to make some lists.”

Bucky nods, watching him from where he’s slumped over on the couch. He feels sleepy, in Steve’s head. And peaceful. Proud of himself, almost. Bucky feels like he’s done something right for once in his life. 

“Hey,” Steve says, voice soft. Because Bucky’s done plenty right in his life, or Steve has, if fate has brought them back together again. But he doesn’t know how to say any of that.

Bucky smiles at him like he hears it anyway.


	6. Chapter 6

Steve knocks on the front door and then turns to look at Bucky. “Sam sometimes keeps people hours, but I let him know we’d be here tonight. I wouldn’t bother him, but he has my keys.”

Bucky nods at him, glancing around, keeping watch.

Steve’s pretty sure he doesn’t need to, but maybe it’s habit for him. Or maybe he’s paranoid. Or both.

Sam’s house is in a quiet neighborhood full of old brownstones. His house doesn’t really stand out much from the rest of the block, other than the flowers that are perhaps flourishing a bit better in the window box than those of the neighbors, and the small pentacle etched into the doorknob that you wouldn’t even notice unless you knew it was there. Or you were attuned to that sort of thing.

Otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to tell how the house is warded against those who intend its occupants harm, or protected against all manner of other possible calamities. Sam’s house is a place of peace, and a safe haven for many people, past, present, and future.

It’s a few more minutes before the door opens. Sam is standing there rubbing his face with one hand while he holds the door open. He seems more than half asleep.

“Sorry man, I fell asleep on the couch.”

Steve smiles at him, genuinely happy to see him. He’s missed Sam. “Sorry, I know it’s late for you.”

Sam shrugs. “Come on in a minute, I gotta dig out your keys anyway.”

Steve and Bucky follow him into the front hall, and Steve doesn’t fail to notice that Bucky has no problems crossing the threshold. But then, Sam had invited them both in, and rather easily. But the wards here hadn’t affected Bucky anymore than they’d affected Steve, and Steve had helped Sam set them himself, he knows what they’re capable of. 

Steve has been here before, many times, and isn’t curious, but he can feel Bucky behind him, looking around at the space. Steve is getting a sense that Bucky is feeling a bit overwhelmed and out of sorts, and he hopes that things will settle when they get downstairs to his apartment.

Sam comes shuffling back down the hall a few minutes later with a set of keys in hand. He hands them over to Steve, and then gives him a hug. Steve hugs him back. He’s really missed Sam the past couple of months. Texts and the rare phone call just aren’t the same as being in his friend’s presence.

“It’s good that you’re back,” Sam says.

“It’s good to be back. How’s everyone doing?”

Sam shrugs one shoulder. “It’s just Bruce right now staying. I’ve got a couple folks coming in this weekend though, for a few days.” Sam looks at Bucky, and crosses his arms. “You gonna cause any issues with any of my people?”

Steve had briefly explained what Sam does to Bucky on the train earlier. He hadn’t thought that Sam would know of Bucky though, or of his reputation. But then, Steve had heard of the Winter Soldier, so why couldn’t other people in the supernatural community have heard of him, even the ones who don’t spent much time around vampires.

“Sam—“ he starts.

Bucky holds up a hand to forestall him, and levels a flat look at Sam. “Any of your people do bad shit to good people?”

Sam doesn’t look offended at that, just thoughtful. “Nah, man, I don’t mess with that kind of folk.”

Bucky shrugs. “Then no, no issues.”

Sam looks at him for a moment more, and then nods. “All right then. Welcome.”

Bucky nods back.

Steve blinks at both of them. “Okay then. Sam, thanks for staying up until we got here, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Yeah sure, Steve. I’m going to bed.” He walks them out, and Steve goes down the front steps and around to the second entrance, down another set of steps hidden under the first, and unlocks the door to his apartment. He’s a little nervous, bringing Bucky here. This place is the first real home he’s known since before his mother died, and Pierce kidnapped him and bound him. He’s protective of it. He’s protective of Sam. He’s protective of all of these things and people he’s starting to care about, when it had been so dangerous for so long for him to care at all about anything or anyone.

And now he’s back here, with Bucky in his space, and he doesn’t know how he feels about that, except nervous. Bucky is forever in his space. In his head. It’s weird, and comforting at the same time.

And Bucky seems to be nervous as well. So at least there’s that.

It’s early yet, to be going to bed, but the traveling had sucked Steve’s energy dry. Nevertheless, he knows he needs to stay up for a while longer. Try to get settled, get acclimated to being back in New York. 

Maybe order from that all night Chinese food place he’d gotten so fond of, before. Eating would probably be a good idea. He knows that he tends to get a little bit dramatic when it’s been awhile since he’s eaten, and he knows it’s been a while.

“You should definitely eat.”

Steve looks up, at Bucky standing his doorway. He’s sitting on the side of his bed, all of his stuff that they’d brought with them strewn around him. He looks like the epicenter of a bomb.

“You’re very dramatic when you’re hungry.”

Steve glares.

“I’ll go get the menu.”

Steve glares some more, as Bucky disappears from the doorway. He flops back on the bed and shuts his eyes.

This is… anticlimactic. They’re here, and nothing has really changed.

Maybe things will change over time?

Steve listens to Bucky rummaging around in the little kitchen, searching for his stash of takeout menus, and pulls his phone from his pocket, sending Peggy a quick text that they’d made it safely to New York and they’re at his place.

Bucky comes back a few minutes later, phone already at his ear, speaking in actual Cantonese to the person on the other end of the line. “What do you want?” he asks.

“Number 12 and 15 with a side of crab rangoon and shrimp egg rolls,” Steve rattles off his usual order.

He faintly hears the person on the other end of the line say something to Bucky, and Bucky chuckles, “yeah it’s for Steve.” He listens for a minute, and then says, “The Wu family all say welcome home.”

Steve smiles at the ceiling. “Tell them I say thank you, please.”

Bucky goes back to chatting with the person on the other end of the phone for a few minutes, and then hangs up. “Food’ll be here in about half an hour. Why don’t you take a nap, Steve?”

“‘M’not tired,” Steve replies.

“Liar. I’ll wake you up when the food is here.” Bucky turns the light out and shuts the door most of the way.

Steve is asleep almost immediately.

——

Bucky nudges him awake, and Steve blinks up at him for a minute before he fully remembers where they are, why the light is so different, why it feels different here. It comes back to him with the smell of Chinese food.

“Come eat, Stevie,” Bucky murmurs, drawing away so Steve can sit up. 

“Yeah,” Steve agrees. He rubs the sleep from his eyes and follows Bucky down the hall to the kitchen. Bucky gently nudges him into one of the chairs, and sets the food in front of him, hands him chopsticks already broken apart.

“You need some decent chopsticks,” he grumbles, sitting down across from Steve. “Eat.”

Steve settles the chopsticks between his fingers and starts eating. The food is as tasty as always, but he’s not really tasting it; he’s not savoring it the way he usually does. He’s ravenous.

Bucky tips his head back and shuts his eyes, a little smile playing across his lips. Like he’s thinking pleasant thoughts.

Or enjoying Steve eating? It’s a strange sort of emotion, that Bucky is feeling as Steve eats, but he doesn’t question it. Not now, anyway.

“Do you want some of this?” he finally asks, when he’s slowing down a bit.

It takes Bucky a minute to come back from wherever he is in his head, straightening from where he’s slouched down in the chair and opening his eyes slowly. “Nah, I’m good,” he murmurs. “This is nice. Keep eating.”

Steve, for once, doesn’t question it, he just polishes off the rest of his food.

“I’ll probably go out tomorrow night,” Bucky adds, after a while, as Steve is dousing his rangoon in duck sauce and shoving them in his mouth, one at a time, licking his fingers after each one before repeating the process.

“Okay,” Steve says around a mouthful of food. “I should probably go say hello to Wanda. And we should probably go see Tony at some point.” He shrugs. Tony’s not his favorite person ever, but he likes Pepper, and he doesn’t want to ruffle any feathers here.

“Who’s Tony?” Bucky growls.

Steve blinks at him. “He’s the Master of the city?”

Bucky sits back.

“Oh, he’s not like that,” Steve goes on, hurried. “He’s not like Pierce, or— it’s just formality. It’s a courtesy call, that’s it, Buck. Promise. He’ll want to meet you, shit. I’m sorry, I didn’t even think—“

Bucky shakes his head, is quiet for a minute. “I’m just surprised, Steve,” he says, softly. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a city that had a Master vampire. Or in a city, really.”

Steve nods. “There’s a large supernatural community here. I think Tony mostly keeps them from in-fighting too much. Like. A mediator? Well, it’s mostly Pepper, Tony seems more interested in building things than people, most of the time.”

“Pepper?”

Steve nods again. “Pepper’s a witch, like me. Not as old, probably? But she’s powerful. I think she’s the one who really does the work. Her and Rhodey. They’re a triad.”

“What is Rhodey?” Bucky asks. It’s probably a rude question, it’s definitely a rude question in the community, but all Steve feels from him is curiosity.

Steve shrugs. “I didn’t ask, that would be rude. Were-something.”

Bucky seems lost in thought for a few minutes. “Okay,” he says, finally. “But in a few days?”

Steve nods. “That should be fine. I can call Pepper tomorrow and see when they have a little free time. There will probably be other people there, because Tony has, like, hangers-on and that sort of shit. Like the way society used to be way back when we were kids, kind of? Or, a royal court? Is that okay?”

It’s Bucky’s turn to shrug. “I guess we’ll find out.”

“Okay.” Steve pauses and takes a deep breath, and realizes he’s probably eaten too much, in something like a trance when he was watching Bucky enjoy him eating. He stands up and stretches a little, rubbing one hand over his full belly. “I ate too much.”

Bucky is watching him.

“I’m gonna go unpack some before I go to sleep. Want me to show you, um, your room?”

“Sure.” Bucky stands up, and lets Steve lead the way down the narrow hall, further past the kitchen towards the back of the house. There is barely any light back here, just what is filtering through from the kitchen. There is a small room that Steve skims past, because it’s not setup yet. It will be his workshop, eventually. The other room is bigger, cozy, and Steve has done his best to make it comfortable and safe-feeling. There is a window in the back, but he’s covered it over with a board and electrical tape as well as blackout curtains. He’s checked it at various times of day, and the window gets no direct light, so his precautions are enough, according to the people he’s asked (he asked Tony, once. After that he just asked Pepper, and she gave him some pointers and was generally actually helpful, unlike Tony).

He doesn’t know what Bucky likes, as far as creature comforts, so Steve had done the things that he thinks make a room comfortable. There are tables on either side of the bed, with little lamps on them. He goes to the one nearest him and turns it on, shedding soft light on the bed, and the rest of the room. There are several pillows on the bed, and a thick comforter over the blankets and sheets. There’s a chest of drawers, and a storage bench at the end of the bed. One corner is taken up by a comfy chair, with another lamp behind it. There’s a throw draped over the back of the chair. It’s a perfect spot for reading (Steve had sat in it several times himself, when he was spending time setting up this guest room with no intended occupant of course not he hadn’t ever wanted to see Bucky again).

“I didn’t set it up for you,” he says, more than a little bit defensive. Even he can hear how defensive he’s being.

Bucky slants a smile at him, looking at him from the corners of his eyes.

“Except I think I kind of did,” Steve admits, his voice soft. 

“It’s nice,” Bucky replies, just a soft. He reaches out and wraps two of his fingers around two of Steve’s, just for a couple of moments, still smiling at him. “Thanks, Stevie.”

“You’re uh,” Steve looks down at their linked fingers, and then away, blushing. “Welcome.”

He can feel what Bucky’s feeling more than ever, in those few moments their fingers are twined together, and it confuses him. He doesn’t understand it, because it cannot possibly be real. 

“I’ll leave you. Um. To get settled in.”

Bucky just smiles at him, knowing and just a little sly.

Steve flees.

———

The next night, Bucky goes out fairly early, as soon as the sun is down and he can leave. He doesn’t tell Steve where he’s going, or what he’s going to do, but Steve can feel it, the hunger itching under Bucky’s skin, the need to hunt. He tries to ignore the feeling, because it makes him anxious and unhappy. It reminds him of Pierce, of the way things used to be, and he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like it but it’s a way of life. Bucky deserves to live, just like anyone else. 

They haven’t really talked about this yet, though. About Bucky being a vampire, living on the blood of others. 

They will have to. Talk. Steve doesn’t like it. He doesn’t want to. But he’ll have to, because they’re bonded, and if there’s one thing he wants now, it’s for things to be different than they were with Pierce.

This is perhaps the biggest understatement in the entire universe.

Steve distracts himself as best he can, going upstairs and hanging out with Sam for a while. They eat dinner together, and Steve tells him an abbreviated version of what’s been going on. He does tell Sam about the wolves, and about Peggy especially. Sam would like Peggy, he thinks. Sam has a self-professed love of ballsy women. Steve thinks that Peggy would like Sam, too. 

He explains why Bucky is with him, something he’d never done before.

Sam nods, “I’ve heard of those bonds before. Not real common, these days. They can be pretty intense, from what I’ve gathered.”

Steve snorts. “Yes. Intense is a good word for it.”

“You seemed pretty hellbent on never seeing this dude again, right up til you dropped your keys off and went running back to him.”

“Sam, it’s not—“

Sam holds up a hand. “I’m not—exactly—implying you’re in an abusive relationship here, Steve. But I’m keeping an eye on that dude.”

“We’re not dating, Sam.”

The look Sam gives him is extremely level and conveys untold levels of disbelief. “Have you seen the way he looks at you?”

Steve furrows his brow. “Yes? He looks at me all the time.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “OK man, whatever.”

Clearly Steve is missing something, but he doesn’t know what it is.

————

Steve spends a while later on unpacking. He opens the door of the room that will be his workshop, behind the kitchen. All that’s in there for now is a large, empty bookshelf and a table he’d found in the garbage and brought home. It could use a good refinishing, but other than that it’s solid. Big and old. It feels like something that has been useful, to Steve. He likes that. He brings in the few books he’d brought down with him and puts them on a shelf.

After that, while he’s still waiting for Bucky to return home (he can feel that Bucky isn’t feeling that same sense of hunger that was plaguing him earlier), he calls Peggy. 

“Hi, darling,” she answers after a couple of rings.

“Hey Pegs,” Steve replies.

“Are you lot settling in okay in the city?”

Steve shrugs before he answers. “Yeah, I think we’re all right. Bucky’s out… I dunno. Prowling the night or something.”

“Oh, independence at last. Perhaps you’ll get on better where you both have some room to be yourselves.”

He finds himself shrugging again. “We get along fine, Pegs. Things were just awkward out there at the house. You know how it is.”

“I really don’t, Steven. I’ve just seen you two together, and I’m hoping you’ll both get your heads out of your arses now that you’re in a more comfortable place than here.”

“I— I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.”

“You’ll figure it out, darling.”


	7. Chapter 7

Peggy assures him that she’d sent out the boxes as he’d requested, and shortly after that she lets him know that it’s getting on time for her to go round up the lads and run them ragged for the night. Peggy acts as their ringleader and their coach and occasionally their mother, although according to her they don’t need nearly as much of it as they used to. She is most definitely the One In Charge, and she is trying to walk the fine line between letting them all relax for a while, while Bucky and Steve get used to each other and the team isn’t really taking any new jobs, and allowing them all to become lazy bastards.

That’s how people get killed, and she would very much like for none of her people to get killed. 

Before they get off the phone, Peggy instructs Steve that he isn’t to die, or allow Bucky to die either. She doesn’t make it sound like a request. Steve agrees, trying to keep the laughter out of his voice, but he’s pretty sure she hears it anyway.

It’s really not a laughing matter, but at this point in his life, Steve can do little else, when it comes to life and death situations. He’d spent too many years living on the knife’s edge. His responses to danger and life and death situations are beyond fucked up.

After he hangs up with Peggy, Steve makes himself a snack, and then he calls Wanda.

“Hello, Steve, how are you?” she answers the phone, her voice and accent both soft and soothing.

Steve is coming to realize that he’s done his level, if subconscious, best to surround himself with soft and soothing people. Wanda, Sam. Even Natasha is soothing, in a sort of all-powerful and scary way.

“I’m doing okay, Wanda. How are you?”

“I’m well, thanks. Are you back in New York?”

“Yes. I just wanted to check in and let you know I’m back in town. I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you, Steve. Also, I’m totally sold out of those protection charms you made me, and have a short waitlist started.”

“Really?”

“Yes, why are you surprised? They’re quite useful. And even if they weren’t, people like the placebo effect.”

“Huh.” Steve thinks over what he has here in New York: his two oldest spell books and his newest, barely started; only a few herbs; his own protection charms and the bare bones of a couple that he’s started half-working on for definitely-not-Bucky. Not nearly enough to make another batch of the protection charms he’d made for Wanda to sell.

“Oh, and I sold that shield bracelet, too.”

“Someone bought that?!”

“Didn’t even question the price, actually. Paid cash. I’ve your portion for everything waiting for you, whenever you’d like to come collect it.”

The shield bracelet had been an experiment, something Steve had been working on in his spare time, to keep himself occupied partly, and also just to see if he could do it, and Wanda had offered to see if anyone wanted to buy it, for a hefty price, only half because it had been made of solid sterling silver. Apparently it had gone over well with someone.

“Whenever you have more charms you’d like me to sell for you, just let me know,” Wanda goes on. “Steve, someone’s just come in. Call me later?”

“Yeah, sure,” Steve replies. His mind is a million miles away, planning. He’d enjoyed making those charms, and it will be something to occupy his time. 

Keep him from pining too much.

Bucky comes back later on that night with an armful of books. Steve’d started cleaning after getting off the phone with Wanda, and hadn’t really stopped yet. The whole apartment has been scrubbed down and vacuumed. He’d cleaned the bathroom, even. It didn’t really need it since no one had been there in ages except Sam, checking in on the place and airing it out a bit now and then, but it did something to settle Steve’s mind, the cleaning. Since he doesn’t really have what he needs to practice his craft, the cleaning will do.

When Bucky comes in, Steve is sweaty and gross, stripped down to just his pajama pants. He’s probably got dust all over him, stuck to his sweaty skin. For a minute, Bucky just stares at him, before he seems to come back to himself, blinks, and puts the books down on the table. 

“I found an all-night bookstore,” he says, gesturing a little at the small pile of books.

Steve smiles at him. “I’m glad.”

————

Those first few days in New York happen within a sort of bubble of peace, that Steve doesn’t know that he’s ever experienced before. At least, not that he can remember. Not real peace, not something akin to peace brought on simply by the lack of being bothered. Not being left alone as something like punishment because he’d accidentally set something on fire again.

The more time passes, the weirder his life up until now seems, even to himself.

Well, Steve reasons with himself, his life is weird. But it’s his.

Bucky goes out for a while at the beginning of each night, two or three hours, and returns happy and sated and usually with books. Steve knows that the supernatural community in New York is pretty big and that Bucky is probably having no issues finding people more than willing to let him feed on them. He’s probably finding people who get off on it— if that’s what he wants. 

Steve pushes those thoughts out of his head quickly and forcefully. Tries to find that peace again. The peace he’d felt when he’d woken up that morning, curled in Bucky’s arms. The peace of the past few days. 

It comes back more quickly than he’d thought it would, but that might have something to do with the way Bucky is feeling. It’s faint, since Bucky isn’t there, but it’s there.

Bucky is… happy.

Steve sits with that a while. It’s a novel concept for him.

He shakes himself out of his reverie and goes back to what he’s working on. The boxes that Peggy had sent have arrived, safe and sound, and Steve is setting up his workshop. All of his books are in their proper places, and he’s started cataloguing his herbs and other sundries; what made the trip intact and what he’s going to need fresh. He’ll need to visit Wanda with a hefty list, it looks like. 

Steve finds himself actually humming as he works, and wonders if that’s because of himself, or because of Bucky.

————

He wakes up in Bucky’s arms, as Bucky lifts him from his own bed.

“Wha’s wrong?” he mumbles, draping his arms around Bucky’s neck.

“Nothing,” Bucky replies, his voice soft in Steve’s ears. He might not actually be hearing Bucky with his ears at all. “Keep sleeping, you were in the wrong bed.”

“Okay.” Steve lets himself drift off again, safe in Becky’s arms.

————

He wakes up again, soft and slow, honey sweet and peaceful in Bucky’s arms. Bucky’s temperature has just about equalized to his own, so it’s been hours that they’ve been in bed together, pressed tight against one another with the pile of blankets and comforter over them. Steve is surrounded by Bucky’s scent, earthy with the slight copper tang of blood and he shouldn’t find that comforting but over the past few months it’s come to mean something that Steve will not name to himself. 

Bucky’s lips are pressed soft and lush against the back of his neck, parted just enough that his breath is humid against Steve’s skin, when Bucky breathes. Which he keeps doing. Perhaps he’d never lost the knack of it. Maybe he just does it to make Steve feel safer.

Whatever the reason, it does make Steve feel safer, to feel Bucky’s chest move shallowly against his back. Everything about Bucky makes him feel safe. His goofy smile. The way he leaves his books all over the apartment. The way he gets grumpy when Steve sleeps in his own bed. 

He’s not sure if it’s Bucky’s nose or his lips that he feels more keenly, but he feels like he could shiver right out of his skin when those lips move against the back of his neck. He shivers and then his whole body stiffens, remembering the incident. Remembering before. Remembering why he shouldn’t feel safe with Bucky.

Bucky’s arms go tighter around him. “‘M’not, it’s okay,” he breathes, and Steve shivers again. “‘M’awake, Stevie. Not gonna bite you, promise. Promise. Promise.”

He keeps mumbling “promise” into Steve’s skin as he slowly drags his lips along the back of Steve’s neck, down and then up again to his hairline, over and over again, and Steve lets himself relax into it. He shouldn’t, he shouldn’t trust this but. 

It’s probably going to get him killed, but he trusts Bucky. Gods help him, he likes Bucky. 

He’s probably falling for Bucky. Which is stupid.

But.

Steve lets himself be held, and be nuzzled, and comforted by the strength in Bucky’s arms, both flesh and metal, and the promise that Bucky is continually pressing into his skin, not to bite him. He lets himself be held, and be nuzzled, and he sinks into it, into the closeness, the safety of it. Bucky holds him close, close and safe but not trapped. He lets himself sink into it and float, safe and comfortable and content just to be there.

Bucky moves, a little, shifting and then settling, his lips still against Steve’s skin. Steve thinks he would miss them, if Bucky were to move away now. It’s a hazy thought, his mind gone fuzzy with Bucky’s nearness, his touch. He finds that he likes it, this haziness, the slow way Bucky is moving, the way he is still murmuring the word promise into Steve’s skin, every now and again.

His hand moves, stroking lightly up and down Steve’s chest, over his stomach, soothing him, though Steve can’t find a reason for him to need soothing through the lovely haze in his head. His hand moves, and moves, and his thumb brushes across Steve’s nipple, sending a little zing of pleasure through him. It’s wonderful and warm and everything goes bright white, harsh and cold with something like panic all at once. 

“Bucky!” It comes out too high and shrill, and Bucky takes his hands off of Steve immediately, rolling away in the bed, and Steve jerks away, out of bed and across the room before he’s even processed what had happened, how good it had felt, the noise that he might’ve made.

Bucky sits up, blinking at him, holding his hands out in supplication, in surrender.

Steve feels. Steve feels guilty, and ashamed of himself even though he’s not entirely sure why, and he can’t think. He can’t think around the guilt clogging his brain, his throat. He shouldn’t have reacted like that. He can trust Bucky. He knows he can.

Bucky is radiating worry and love and guilt and concern and Steve can’t stand him feeling like that, not over Steve’s body reacting stupidly, and Steve clenches his fists at his sides.

“Steve?” Bucky says after a few tense minutes. He’s still radiating, it’s all Steve can feel, crowding out his own guilt and shame. He knows what he wants but he can’t make the words come out of his mouth so he shuts his eyes, and he _thinks_ at Bucky. _Please just shut up and hug me._

Bucky climbs out of bed slowly and crosses the room to Steve’s side. He’s telegraphing every move, moving human-slow, deliberate. Steve lets him, aware of how closely he’s watching Bucky for any signs of treachery, even though he knows that he trusts Bucky, even though Bucky isn’t going to hurt him. Bucky stops just in front of him, and holds out his arms. After a moment of terrible indecision, Steve steps into them, sliding his arms around Bucky’s waist.

They stay like that for a long time, quietly holding each other. Bucky seems content to rest his chin on Steve’s head, arms loose around his waist, and Steve is definitely ok with his head tucked under Bucky’s chin. It’s comforting and soothing in the best way, and he’s sad when he eventually realizes he can’t actually stay like that all night. He has stuff to do.

They’re supposed to go meet Tony and Pepper and Rhodey tonight, after all. Steve’s only a little bit nervous about introducing Bucky to Tony. In his experience, vampires meeting each other hasn’t historically gone very well.

But then, Pierce had only really deigned to meet others when he was about to kill them, or at least subjugate them in some way.

So maybe Tony will be happy to meet the one who killed him.

Here’s hoping.

Eventually, he pats Bucky’s back and pulls back a little. Bucky lets him go easily enough, but when Steve looks up at him, he’s blinking sleepily, like he’d nearly fallen asleep again.

“I have to go to Wanda’s before we go to the tower. Do you want to go with me?”

Bucky shrugs. “Sure.”

Steve can feel himself grinning at Bucky, because he really hadn’t expected him to agree to come along. Bucky usually does his own thing early in the night, coming home flushed and happy, sated and full.

Bucky shrugs at him, probably picking up on Steve’s thoughts, like usual. “I can wait til later. Or tomorrow. I’ll be fine.”

Steve blushes a little. “Okay. I’m going to eat and get dressed, and then we can head out.”

“Take your time, Stevie.”

\--

The walk to Wanda’s shop is quiet, the night cool. Steve notices that Bucky keeps bumping into him, just gentle little nudges. It’s nice, for all that Steve stumbles a little every. Single. Time. He keeps glaring at Bucky, but he’s pretty sure his smiles are coming through as well, so it’s not really a surprise that it doesn’t work.

Wanda’s shop is small, tucked in between a laundromat and a pizza place, with the apartment she shares with her brother over the shop. As far as Steve knows, they own the building, and have for a while. He doesn’t know the details, but he knows that they’re refugees, and that their parents died in the war that they were seeking asylum from. And that they’re both very proud of their relatively recent citizenship.

Somehow, despite the pizza place next door, the shop never smells of pizza. Mostly it smells of sage and lavender. Herbal. Comforting. It reminds Steve of the home he only barely remembers. All he has left is impressions, and he relishes anything that reminds him of it. It’s probably part of why he’d taken so quickly to Wanda when they’d first met.

When they walk into the shop amid the softly tinkling bells over the door, Wanda pops out from behind one of the shelves almost immediately. When she sees Steve, her face lights up with a huge smile, and she crosses to him with her arms open. The constant red tinge that surrounds her amplifies as she approaches, reflecting how happy she is to see him.

Steve hurries to meet her, and they hug. Bucky is hanging back, by the door, but he has Steve’s list, so Steve steps back from Wanda and gestures him over.

“Wanda, this is Bucky. Bucky, this is my friend Wanda. She’s the one who sold all those charms I made that I told you about.”

Wanda and Bucky look at each other. Neither of them offers a hand to shake, but that’s not nearly as rude for supernatural folk as it is considered for regular types. After a moment, Bucky nods at her, and she returns the gesture.

It seems like enough. Or at least like they’re not going to start trying to kill each other, so Steve counts it as a win.

“Can I have my list?”

“Sure.” Bucky hands over the list.

Steve takes it with a smile and turns back to Wanda. “Want to help me pick out stuff?”

“Of course.”

Steve and Wanda head off into the shop together while Bucky loiters near the door.

“Is he ok up there?” Steve asks in an undertone while they’re examining charms ready for Steve to imbue with power.

“He won’t scare anyone off who really needs something,” Wanda replies with a shrug. “How’ve you been, Steve? You look good. Much better than when you left New York.”

Steve shrugs off her concern. He doesn’t really like to think about that anymore. “I feel better. It’s… weird. This whole thing, with him. But. Good?”

“You sound unsure.”

“I’m not sure. I haven’t decided yet. But tentatively, it’s good. Better than it was before I went back to the estate.”

“I could’ve told you that, Steve. I know it’s not the same, myself and Pietro, but it’s close enough that I could see you were suffering, no matter how deep in denial you were.”

Steve glares a bit. But he’s so happy that it doesn’t really work.

“Besides,” Wanda adds. “You two look good together. You seem happier with him.”

Steve blinks at her a bit. “Together?”

Wanda furrows her brow a little in confusion. “Yes? You are together, are you not?”

Steve splutters, staring at Wanda. He’s probably gaping. “No. No, no. We’re just friends.”

Wanda raises her eyebrows. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure!”

“Okay,” Wanda agrees, easily enough. She doesn’t bring it up again for the rest of their time together, picking out all the different things that Steve needs to buy, or stock up on, or just plain wants. It ends up being a pretty hefty order. She helps him bring everything to the counter and rings him up, still chatting. Still not bringing up again that she thinks Steve and Bucky are dating.

Steve thinks of nothing else, the whole time. _Why would she think that?_

Bucky grabs most of the bags as Wanda puts them on the counter. He blithely ignores it when Steve glares at him, because _he can do it himself, this isn’t why he asked Bucky go come here with him._

He’d just wanted the company, is all.

But Bucky ignores him, and grabs about all of the bags, and says good-bye to Wanda. He puts his hand on Steve’s back, between his shoulders, and easily directs him out of the store. He holds the door, and then he puts his hand back on Steve’s back.

“Why is she red?” Bucky asks as they’re walking home.

Steve shrugs. Bucky’s hand is still on his back, and he’s acting like it’s nothing. Maybe it is nothing. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything at all, that Bucky’s touching him casually. “I never asked,” he responds after a moment. “It seems rude. I assume it’s to do with her power. She’s very powerful. More powerful than me, I think.”

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees, easily enough. “I could feel that she’s powerful. I don’t think she’s more powerful than you, though.”

“You don’t?”

“No. I think you’re a lot more powerful than you think you are.” Bucky looks down at him and smiles a little. Then he shrugs a little, and he moves his hand to pat Steve on the shoulder.

Steve decides to ignore that. He’s spent a very long time making himself believe that he’s not very powerful at all, because it’s the only thing that kept him alive. He can’t deal with his own power, not right now. Not here. Not with Bucky so close to him. Because he’s pretty sure he’ll explode, when he finally does. “I didn’t know you could see that.”

“Hmm? Oh, sure. You glow too, Stevie.”

“I do not!”

Bucky grins at him. “You do. You’re golden.”

Steve doesn’t know how to respond to that. But he thinks that maybe the way he blushes might be enough.


	8. Chapter 8

“Steven!” Tony hails from across the large common room in which everyone invited to tonight’s audience is gathered. He’s got his arms spread wide, and obnoxious gold-rimmed sunglasses on, with a ratty old t-shirt and what might actually be tuxedo pants. 

Behind him, Rhodey and Pepper both roll their eyes, in creepy unison. But they’re both smiling as well, because that’s the way things work for the three of them. Tony is obnoxious and nominally the “one in charge” because of the way vampire politics work, but anyone who’s spent more than ten minutes with all three of them realizes that Pepper and Rhodey are definitely the ones in charge. They’re not even the power behind the throne. They’re the power keeping the throne from accidentally starving to death because he was too caught up tinkering in his workshop a few floors down. 

Steve rolls his eyes as he turns to look at Tony fully. But he, too, is smiling when he calls back “Anthony!” Tony winces at being addressed by his full name, and Steve grins.

Because Steve stopped being intimidated by vampires somewhere around the early eighteen hundreds.

Bucky stands at his side, radiating menace, worrying about how this meeting is about to go.

Steve glances at him, and slips his hand around Bucky’s waist to the small of his back. _It’ll be fine, Tony’s a softie. I don’t even hate him, and you know how much I love vampires, Buck._

It’s useful, that Bucky can read his thoughts. It makes communicating in situations like this, where it may not be prudent to speak aloud, much easier.

And Steve is nothing if not prudent.

He almost snorts out loud at that though; even he is self-aware enough to know that he’s not prudent. When he glances at Bucky again when Tony gets near, Bucky is grinning at him, clearly picking up on Steve’s unspoken admission to himself. He sobers quickly when Tony arrives, Pepper and Rhodey following behind at a much more sedate pace. Steve steps just a bit away from Bucky, staying close enough to present a united front, but not so close as to soften Bucky’s—The Winter Soldier’s—first impression.

“Where’d you dig up this beefcake?!” Tony slings an arm around Steve’s shoulders, and Steve can feel himself bristling at the contact. He doesn’t mind in the slightest when Bucky touches him, but he also doesn’t like it at all when someone else does. Even if that someone is Tony, who is mostly sort-of harmless and nominally a friend. He shrugs, hard.

Tony does not take the hint. Whether that’s on purpose or that he just hasn’t bothered to notice Steve’s discomfort, Steve isn’t sure.

“Tony, this is—“ 

Tony interrupts him, waving away the introduction, the formality. “Did you bring him back from Minnesota or whatever the fuck godforsaken bit of the world you ran off to?” Tony seems ready to go on, peering intently at Steve, but Pepper chooses that slight lull to slide her arm around Tony from behind, covering his mouth with her hand and muffling whatever it was he was going to say. She leans in close and murmurs something Steve doesn’t catch in Tony’s ear.

“Right,” Tony says when she moves her hand. “Of course. Love you, Pep.” Tony mimes zipping his lip and takes a step away from Steve, back into Rhodey’s waiting arms. Rhodey squeezes him, and drops his chin onto Tony’s shoulder. Pepper looks fondly at them for a moment, before turning her attention to Steve. 

“Steve, it’s lovely to see you. We’re so glad you’re back in New York, your presence has been noted, and missed. You looking well.” 

Steve smiles at her, and steps forward into her waiting arms, returning her hug easily. She is one of the few people he doesn’t mind hugging regularly. Or touching in general. When he steps back, he turns to Rhodey, who is still holding Tony, and offers a hand, and they shake. Tony reaches out and grabs one of Pepper’s hands, and twines their fingers together.

Steve faces them all, with Bucky at his shoulder, the informal greetings done, and falls back on formality. “Tony, Pepper, Rhodey, this is—“ he looks at Bucky. “James. Uh, the Winter Soldier.” He manages to make it not a question. He hasn’t thought of Bucky as the Winter Soldier for a while now. Months, possibly. “We’re uh— Bonded.”

The three of them blink for a moment, between Steve and Bucky, and then Pepper smiles at him. “Oh Steve, that’s wonderful. You make a fine pair. Congratulations. Be welcome here.”

Next to him, Bucky relaxes infinitesimally.

“Thank you,” Steve says, his relief evident in his voice. He feels a light touch, Bucky’s hand on his back where no one can see it.

“Wait, are you the guy who killed Zola?” Tony asks, suddenly. There’s a glint in his eye that Steve isn’t sure he likes.

“Yes,” Bucky replies, his voice a growl. It’s the first he’s spoken since they’d arrived.

“Awesome,” Tony replies immediately. 

If the surprise Bucky is hiding is any indication, he wasn’t expecting that reaction.

“Thanks,” Tony goes on. “He was getting to be a real asshole and I don’t really like fighting a lot?”

Steve and Bucky exchange a look. Was that supposed to be a question? Is Tony going to ask Bucky to kill someone for him? How would that even work? Tony’s the Master of the city. He’s sort of supposed to do his own killing.

“He killed Pierce, too,” someone says, from just outside the little circle the five of them seem to have formed.

Everyone turns to look at the woman with flame-red hair leaning against the wall nearby. Clearly she’d been listening, but as one, Tony, Pepper, and Rhodey all nod respectfully at her.

Steve just grins. “Nat! You’re here!”

She smiles back at Steve, one of her odd little smiles. “Hello, Steve.”

Steve gestures Bucky forward. “Natasha, this is James. We’re bonded.” 

“I see that,” she responds. 

Pepper steps forward, gently brushing Steve’s arm. “Steve, we must take our leave. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like, you and James. You’ll text me soon, yes? We should get lunch.”

“Definitely,” Steve responds. 

Pepper leans down and brushes a kiss against Steve’s cheek, and then wanders off with Tony and Rhodey, to continue making the rounds amongst their subjects and friends.

“How did you know about Pierce?” Steve asks. He can almost say the man’s name without wincing.

He’s fairly certain that Natasha notices but then, she notices everything.

“Word gets around,” is all she says in response.

Bucky is a steady presence at his back while he chats with Natasha. She keeps looking between them, a similar glint in her eyes to the one that Steve had seen in Tony’s earlier. He’s not really sure what it means. 

“You seem to be doing better these days,” Natasha says at one point. She’s always really direct; Steve supposes it’s in her nature. She has no need to dissemble, to lie or prevaricate, no matter what form she’s taking.

Steve shrugs. He’s not sure how to reply to that. “I am, I guess?”

Natasha looks long and steady over his shoulder. Steve twists around, and sees the sour look on Bucky’s face. He looks back and forth between them, not sure what’s going on. Eventually, Bucky shrugs, and Natasha smiles, another of her cryptic smiles (all of her smiles are cryptic. Steve thinks it must go with her particular territory. She seems to take great pleasure in being thus).

She turns the smile on Steve. “I’m glad.”

——

Steve is still talking to Natasha, about the supplies he’d just bought from Wanda earlier that night—it turns our she shops with Wanda as well, although Steve has no idea what need Natasha has for witchy supplies, but perhaps she just likes it— and what he plans to do with them, when Tony shows up again. Steve glances around, but Pepper and Rhodey are both talking to other people. They’re mingling, making connections, keeping up with the things that need doing to keep the city running smoothly, keep their territory protected and strong.

Tony is staring at Bucky’s arm. He reaches out, and Bucky goes still. More still than normal, which is vampire-still. Tony doesn’t seem to notice, he is staring hard at Bucky’s arm.

Bucky is practically vibrating with nerves next to Steve, but he knows that no one else can see it, can sense it. Natasha steps up close behind Steve. Maybe she can sense it too.

“Where did you get this?” Tony asks. He’s got Bucky’s arm in his hands now, examining it. Bucky is just letting him, but he’s scared. Almost terrified, Steve can feel it.

“I don’t know,” Bucky says, his voice very quiet. “I don’t remember. Zola, I guess.”

Steve makes a noise, putting his hand on Bucky’s back, between his shoulders.

“Bastard,” Tony hisses. He looks up at Bucky. “He stole this from me. My design. And he probably did a shitty job of putting it on, too. I can fix that for you.”

Bucky blinks at him. Steve blinks over Bucky’s shoulder at him. “For what price?” Bucky asks.

Tony shrugs. “I dunno, none? Don’t kill me? Take care of Steve, he’s a feisty loudmouth and Pepper really likes him. So does Natasha, actually, and you really don’t want to piss her off. So, yeah. Take care of Steve. That works for a price.”

“Steve can take care of himself!” Steve points out.

Tony rolls his eyes, and from the wave of exasperated fondness he gets from Bucky, he’s pretty sure Bucky is doing the same.

Behind him, Natasha is chuckling.

Everyone ignores Steve. 

“What do you say?” Tony asks.

Bucky shrugs. “I’ll think about it.”

Tony looks him, and then nods. “It hurts a lot, right?”

Bucky shrugs again, but Steve can feel that Tony is right. He doesn’t like that Bucky is in pain, ever. He doesn’t want to think about that. He doesn’t want it to be true. 

Pepper shows up then, to save them all from awkward conversation and admissions. 

“Tony, stop fondling James’s arm.”

“But it’s one of mine, Pep!”

“Yes, but it’s _his_ arm, my dear.”

“Right, sure, of course. Personal space.” This seems like it’s a common conversation, from the way Tony says it. He lets go of Bucky, obviously reluctant, and takes a step back.

“You guys are really like, good together,” Tony says. “It’s, uh. Good.”

Steve has no idea what to say to that.

Tony shrugs, and he lets himself be drawn away from them again by Pepper. 

“You do make a fine couple,” Natasha says, from where she’s been watching all of this from just behind Steve. She hadn’t left when Tony had showed up and started fondling Bucky’s arm. Apparently she’d wanted to watch the show. Steve doesn’t blame her, not at all.

“Um,” Steve says. Oh so elegant.

“Thank you,” Bucky says for him. 

“You act as though you’ve been together for longer than a few months.” She’s talking to Bucky, now. Steve watches, and feels the things that Bucky is feeling.

Bucky shrugs. “We knew each other, when we were children. It’s been… quite some time, since we spent time together, but Steve is the same in a lot of ways. I think I took some getting used to, though.” He smiles at Steve.

Steve is dumbstruck.

Bucky and Natasha chat for a bit longer, exchanging pleasantries for the most part, and then Natasha makes her excuses. She smiles a little at both of them, says goodbye to Bucky, and kisses Steve on the cheek. 

He’s too busy being dumbstruck to take much notice of it. 

_There’s a reason everyone thinks we’re a couple_ , he thinks.

Bucky has his hand on Steve’s back, and they’re in the elevator.

“Oh!” 

Bucky looks down at him. “What’s up, Stevie?”

“I didn’t say goodbye to anyone. I’m supposed to. Pepper likes the formalities.” He’ll have to make it up to her.

“I did,” Bucky says. 

“You did?”

Bucky gives him a look. _You needn’t be so surprised. I know how these things work too._

“Of course, sorry, Buck.”

He shrugs. “It’s fine. I was ready to go. You were off in your head somewhere.”

They ride the elevator down to the ground floor and leave the building. 

“How does he live in such a huge glass building?” Bucky wonders, looking up at the building looming above them. “He’s a vampire just like all the rest of us.”

“UV blocking glass,” Steve replies. 

“Huh?”

“It’s the UV light that affects you. He invented this super UV blocking glass. It’s how he can stay above ground. I think he uses a lot of curtains in his bedroom too. Just in case. Not that I’ve ever been in Tony Stark’s bedroom. That would be weird. Also—“

“You hate vampires, I know, Stevie.”

“Everyone thinks we’re dating.”

Bucky shrugs. “I know.”

Steve stops and looks at him. “You’re… okay with that?”

Bucky shrugs again. “I thought you could feel what I’m feeling at pretty much any given time.”

Steve nods. “Yeah, I try not to pry too much though. That would be rude.”

Bucky snorts. “Rude. Yeah. That’s the issue. So, you know how I feel. I didn’t think I needed to say it out loud.”

Steve opens his mouth to speak, and then shuts it again, because he has no idea what he wants to say. They start walking again after a few moments, heading towards the subway, and thence home.

Neither of them speaks for a long time.

They’re nearly home when Bucky speaks again. “Did you think I was lying, or something?”

Steve shrugs. “I thought it was just— just that we’re together again. Relief, or something? I don’t know what I thought.”

“You’re an idiot, Steve.”

He glares at Bucky, and starts walking again. Bucky follows behind him, feeling fondness and love and exasperation. And something that is probably patience; patience for Steve’s stupidity and refusal to believe, and it’s probably that last one that really hits Steve. That finally makes Steve understand.

Bucky really does love him.

Bucky’s been in love with him this whole time.

“Since I was about six years old, Stevie,” Bucky says softly, reading his mind again.

Steve stops and glares at him again. “Stop that.”

Bucky lifts his hands in surrender.

Steve stalks down the block to Sam’s house, and down the stairs to his front door, and unlocks it angrily, and stomps into the apartment, straight back to his room. Where he sits angrily on his bed, arms crossed.

He sits there for about five minutes before he finally accepts that he’s definitely being an idiot.

He doesn’t even know why he’d been so angry, just moments before. Possibly because it’d taken him so long to realize? Possibly because he’s been in love with Bucky for as long as he’s been alive? Which probably isn’t objectively true, but it’s how he feels, anyway.

He doesn’t know for sure. But he knows that Bucky is here, in the same apartment as him. He knows that Bucky feels the same way about him as he does about Bucky.

So why is he not with Bucky right now? In every sense of the term?

Because he’s an idiot.

Steve sighs, and rubs his hands over his face. When he looks up, getting ready to stand up and go find Bucky, Bucky is already there, leaning in the doorway. 

“We all right?” Bucky asks him.

“Yeah. Yes. Yes, we are. I love you.”

“I know.” 

Steve makes a face. 

“I love you too, Stevie.” Bucky straightens and opens his arms, and Steve is across the room and in them in a moment.

They stand there, together, in each other’s arms, for a long time. Steve presses his face against Bucky’s chest and breathes him in. Bucky slowly strokes his hands up and down Steve’s back. Eventually, an eternity later, Steve pulls back, just enough to look up at Bucky. Bucky, who is smiling gently down at him.

“Can I kiss you?”

Steve can’t help it: he hesitates. Because no matter how badly he wants to kiss Bucky, there still—

“No biting, I promise.”

_Yes._


	9. epilogue

Bucky shuffles down the hall towards the voices he can hear in the kitchen. He’d woken up without Steve at his side and he’s grumpy with it. It’s been two days since he’s fed, and he knows he needs to take care of his appetite tonight, before it starts creeping in on his burgeoning romantic relationship with Steve.

It’s weird to think of it that way, when they’ve been sharing a bed for several months now, when he’d thought for almost as long that Steve was just ignoring how much love he could feel from Bucky. He’d been trying to stay out of Steve’s head as much as he could though, and he’d never realized.

Steve and Sam are in the kitchen, sitting across the table from each other. They’re chatting, weaving something between them that Bucky can’t look directly at. The weaving glows.

So do Steve and Sam.

Bucky drops a kiss to Steve’s shoulder as he shuffles by and drops himself into the other chair at the table. He shuts his eyes most of the way, and he can sort of see enough that he’s pretty sure that the spell they’re weaving together is a protection of some sort. Steve will probably tell him about it later.

“You need to eat tonight, Buck,” Steve says by way of greeting.

“Nag, nag, nag,” Sam adds, laughing.

Bucky flips him off. “I’ll head out soon,” he tells Steve.

Steve nods.

Bucky stares at him, mesmerized by the way he’s glowing, soft and golden with the magic flowing through him. He’s gorgeous like this. Well, Steve is always gorgeous.

“You’re staring,” Steve says after a few minutes of this.

“I know,” Bucky replies. He’s smiling a bit, he can feel it.

“You two are gross,” Sam interjects.

Bucky looks over at him, flips him off again, just for good measure.

Sam laughs. He has a nice laugh. Bucky doesn’t really want to like him, but he kind of can’t help himself. Not that he’d ever admit it.

They all lapse into silence, Sam and Steve still weaving, and Bucky watching while he slowly wakes up.

“Steve, what’s Natasha?” He asks, when he remembers that he’s been meaning to ask for a few days now. He’s been a little… distracted. To say the least. By Steve. By his body. His lips. His everything.

Sam laughs at him. Just straight up laughs. Bucky turns momentarily to glare at him. 

“So you met Nat, huh?” Sam says, ignoring the glare. Bucky really feels like Sam should be more afraid of him. Hello, vampire?!

Steve isn’t laughing, but he is smirking down at his work, his fingers flying as he weaves. “She was at Tony’s the other day when we went to introduce Bucky. I think she was just there to remind him of… you know. Herself.”

Sam laughs again. “She’s awesome. And terrifying.”

Steve nods, and so does Bucky. 

“She kissed my cheek, when she was leaving,” Steve says.

“So you’re basically made for life then. Nice.”

Bucky watches the exchange, still confused.

“Really?” Steve asks.

“You think ya boy over there is protective? Try having her in your corner. You’re golden.”

“BUT WHAT IS SHE?” Bucky interjects, frustrated. No one is answering him.

“What do you think she is?” Sam or Steve asks. They might be speaking together now. 

Magic is weird. Bucky likes it, that it’s something Steve can do, but it’s weird. He would be jealous, except he can tell where Steve’s and Sam’s thoughts are touching but not quote mingling. He suspects if he and Steve weren’t bonded, Steve and Sam would be the same person right now.

Magic is weird as hell.

But the bond is stronger.

Bucky shrugs and answers the question. “I don’t know. I’d say vampire, but she felt older than that. More… primal? Way more powerful than any vampire I’ve ever met before. I recognized something about her, but she’s super way out of my league, against whatever measure you care to use.”

Sam chuckles. Or Steve. Or both of them.

Steve is the one who takes pity on him, though. “Natasha’s a dragon, Buck.”

Oh. Well, that makes sense. She _is_ terrifying.

“But wait— Steve. She could break the bond without breaking a sweat.”

Steve glances at him. Even his eyes are glowing, the blue of them even more mesmerizing than usual. Steve shrugs, and goes back to his weaving; he’d never even faltered. 

Sam is watching them from the corner of his eyes.

Bucky wants to slap himself. His big mouth, jesus christ. 

It doesn’t matter though; he has Steve. He knows it. He just wants Steve to be happy, even if that means breaking their bond, so Steve can be truly free. 

He’d still have Steve, if Steve were free. Steve wouldn’t run from him again. He would stay.

Probably.

“You haven’t asked her,” he guesses.

Steve nods.

Bucky is confused, and he’s sure that even if it isn’t showing plain as day on his face, then Steve can feel it. “Why not?”

He dreads the answer.

Steve looks at him for real, his eyes glowing blue and bright. For the first time since they started talking, his fingers still. “Because I don’t want her to break it,” he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! comments are life! <3

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! comments give me life!


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